Hazardous Contents
by Nail Strafer
Summary: A mysterious woman hires Wolf O'Donnell for a job. All he has to do is steal a case from a secret Cornerian military vault, return the case to her, and then Star Wolf will be one hundred million credits richer. Sounds simple, but things get a lot more complicated once he gets his hands on it.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Beltino Toad sipped his coffee, looking bleary-eyed at the monitor on his desk. The computer's clock showed 12:03 am. Just looking at the time made him feel exhausted, but he knew he wasn't going to finish what he was doing if he fixated on that. After readjusting his glasses, he resumed pounding the keys, glancing out his office window every so often. The Cornerian Army's largest base spread out around his laboratory building. Its proper name was the Corneria City Space Navy Base (or CCSNB), and the lights still glowed brightly despite the late hour. After all, the Cornerian Army had to be ever vigilant and ready to defend the homeland. Andross taught them that well.

Beltino spared another glance at the mountains to the south. Some of Corneria City's taller skyscrapers peeked over them, twinkling in the night. He gazed at them with a sigh. Home was over there, and everyone else in the building was probably home and fast asleep now. About a week ago, the Cornerian Army's top brass gave his team a project they needed finished yesterday, and he and his team had been scrambling to finish it ever since. This was his fourth late night in a row. Sometimes he thought of his dedication with a mark of pride, but not tonight. Right now he just wanted to get out of here, eat something, and collapse into bed for a few hours.

At last, the report's final words appeared on the screen. Smiling with relief, Beltino emailed his report to General Peppy and shut down his machine. It felt rather good shutting off the lights and taking his coat off the wall after that. The elevator brought him to the first floor, announcing his arrival with a small 'ding'. The doors slid open, leaving nothing between him and his car but a dark hallway and a quick walk across the parking lot. He could see the lot's lights through the glass doors at the far end of the corridor.

As he approached the exit, some dark figures wandered into view, silhouetted by the street lights. They carried laser rifles. This was a military base though, so he didn't even blink at the sight. But when they reached the front door, one of them turned his rifle around and thrust the buttstock at the glass. It shattered, spraying the tile floor with shards. His eyes widened. Did that really just happen?

"That's him! Get him!" One of the figures reached for the door's lock through the shattered glass.

A wave of panic washed over Beltino, as he spun around and ran the other way. He could hear the front door sweeping open, pushing aside the shards as it went. Heavy boots echoed through the dark hallway after him. This felt like a nightmare. Why would someone want to chase him like this? He was just a scientist!

Beltino ran as fast as his legs could carry him, diving around a corner so the intruders couldn't get a shot at him. An alarm button hung on the wall nearby. He pounded on it as hard as he could, but nothing happened. In a panic, he pushed it several more times to no effect. The intruders rounded the corner, levelling their weapons at him. Beltino raised his hands up, his heart pounding. The three intruders moved to form a triangle around him, guns still pointed in his face.

All of them wore Cornerian military fatigues, wielding the standard-issue laser rifle. While they wore helmets with face-concealing visors, the long muzzles identified all of them as canines. Husky, jackal… One of them grabbed him round the shoulder and yanked him in close. The toad cried out, the canine's grip almost yanking his arm out of its socket.

"Dr. Beltino Toad?" the canine said in a calm voice.

He could feel the canine's hot breath on his face with how close together they were. That voice sounded familiar...

"Beltino Toad?" the canine repeated.

"Y-yes?" He adjusted his askew glasses.

The canine let out a little chuckle, raising his helmet's visor. Beltino gasped. It should have been impossible for him to be here, and yet here he was. The canine's single purple eye sized up the toad like a predator sizing up his next meal. A computerized eye patch covered the other eye, a long scar running underneath it and through the dark gray fur surrounding it. Wolf O'Donnell.

Beltino felt like Death smiled right at him as the lupine's wicked grin showed his sharp teeth. "Pleasure to meet you. You're coming with us."

Wolf wrapped one of his arms round Beltino's armpit, one of the fake soldiers getting the other side. They carried him down the hallway, his feet dragging on the tiled floor. As they rounded a corner, Beltino spotted a security camera mounted near the ceiling, looking right at them. Wolf and his cronies acted like it wasn't even there.

"Please! Someone help me!" Beltino cried out to the camera, craning his head towards it. "Wolf O'Donnell's got me! He's in the base! Send security!"

Laughter rung in the toad's ears, his captors smiling at his words. Wolf even stopped to give the camera a cheesy grin and thumbs up.

"You think we're that stupid?" Wolf turned to look at Beltino, pointing at the camera. "Your security guards are watching looping footage of empty hallways. They're blind and they don't even know it. Nobody is coming to help you."

A cold chill gripped Beltino, realizing he was alone with these criminals.

The group entered the building's maintenance section and boarded a large cargo elevator. Without warning, Wolf grabbed the badge lanyard around Beltino's neck and yanked it off, almost knocking off his glasses in the process. Moving the badge across a scanner, the scanner's light glowed green and the elevator descended.

Beltino thought he knew what Wolf was doing now. They were headed for the classified vaults in the subterranean complex underneath this base. That's why they needed him. First they used his badge to get past the lift's card scanner, and now Wolf would need his eyes for the vault's biometric scanner. The vault contained classified scientific information, antiquities, technology, and weapons. If these criminals got inside, they'd have all of the Corneria's military secrets at their fingertips.

But Beltino had one last hope. A round-the-clock security detail always manned the entrance to the vaults, with a minimum of four guards there at all times. He said a silent prayer as he waited for the elevator doors to open.

Next to Wolf, the fake husky soldier dropped his backpack onto the floor, pulling a massive gun out of it. Beltino recognized it as the new standard issue light plasma machine gun, the LPMG. In the firing trials, it shredded a car in half in under a minute. Husky stepped forward towards the crack in the elevator doors, levelling the weapon at it.

As the doors parted Husky opened fire, walking forward as he waved the gun left and right. He kept his finger on the trigger for well over fifteen seconds, the gun firing the entire time. The strobe effect of the plasma blasts was agonizing. Beltino closed his eyes and screamed, the roar assaulting his ears. In contrast, Wolf and Jackal stood stock still like nothing was happening. Finally, mercifully, the shooting stopped.

Beltino opened his eyes, afraid of what he might see. Reality didn't disappoint. Behind their desks, four guards laid back lifeless in their chairs, torn full of holes and blood splattered on the walls and vault door behind them. The LPMG's high-powered blasts had torn right through the armored guard booths. One of the dead guard's fingers hovered over the alarm button.

His captors dragged him between the two desks, which sat on either side of the path leading to the vault. Jackal walked into one of the guard booths, dragging out a dead soldier with another badge lanyard around his neck. Beyond the booths, the two-meter thick vault door loomed large in the far wall.

Wolf whipped Beltino's glasses off, before pushing him towards an eye scanner on the left side of the door. Meanwhile, Jackal dragged a security guard's corpse to the eye scanner on the right.

"Ready?" Wolf called out. "Three, two, one."

Beltino's eye got shoved into the retinal scanner, while Jackal did the same with the guard on the right. At the same time, Husky shoved the badges into card slots next to the retinal scanners. A green light illuminated over the vault door, the entrance grinding open. As they waited for it to finish opening, Wolf passed back Beltino's glasses. With a shaking hand, the toad put them back on.

"All right Mr. Beltino." Wolf pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. After reading it, he returned his attention to the toad. "We're after one specific thing here. Nothing more, nothing less. You're going to help us find it."

Despite his fear, Beltino wondered what that one specific thing could be. The vault complex contained millions of items, going back hundreds of years. Just what could he want down there?

They stepped through the vault door into a small parking garage. Instead of cars, small electric carts waited in an orderly line along one wall. Wolf grabbed Beltino round the wrist and flung him into the front passenger seat of one of the carts, before taking a seat in the cargo bed. The toad felt the tip of Wolf's blaster prodding him in the back of the head. Jackal took the driver's seat, while Husky tossed the guard's corpse into a second cart and got behind the wheel.

"Lucky man today Beltino." Wolf chuckled. "You get to ride up front."

Setting out, they glided through an industrial gray hallway, garish fluorescent lights reflecting off of the smooth concrete. These vaults spread out like a maze, expanded many times over several decades through a natural underground cavern beneath the base. You could get lost for hours if you didn't know where you were going. That didn't seem to deter Wolf though. He read off the slip of paper, calling out to Jackal which way to go at each intersection.

Meanwhile, Beltino wondered what he could do to escape. He couldn't think of anything that wouldn't get him killed. It was three on one, and he was unarmed. He'd have to cooperate for now and pray an opportunity came up later. But whatever he did, he knew he needed to do it fast. They wouldn't need him anymore once they got what they came for.

"How's your son doing these days?" Wolf placed his muzzle on the toad's shoulder, speaking directly into Beltino's ear. "Still working for that pup Fox McCloud?"

The toad froze. One of the most wanted men in the galaxy sat behind him, with a laser pointed at his back. Wolf seemed to enjoy making him uncomfortable, laughing as he pulled back.

"Boss, we're here." Jackal pointed at the door beside them.

Another thick metal door towered above them, set into the right side wall. Like the entrance to the vault, it too had a double keycard, double retinal scan setup. After repeating the unlock routine with Beltino and the guard's corpse, the vault door hissed open. Cool mist poured out through the opening.

A massive warehouse greeted them on the other side, racks of metal shelves standing several stories tall. Shiny metal boxes and cases of various sizes filled the shelves, the room so large you couldn't see the other end from the entrance. Wolf stepped into the warehouse first. He didn't look happy as he eyed the size of the place.

"All right, Mr. Toad." Wolf whirled around. "What's the fastest way to find a specific case in here? We don't have all night. "

Wolf mentioning his time limit gave Beltino an idea. Maybe he could slow them down. Security would notice the break-in eventually, even if the systems were compromised. So the longer he stalled, the bigger the chance he would survive and these ruffians would get caught.

"W-w-well…" Beltino cleared his throat, pointing at a terminal set into the wall. "That computer has a search program."

"Then get to work." Wolf shoved him towards the terminal, Beltino almost falling face first into the mounted keyboard. After catching his balance and dusting himself off, he typed in his username and password, pressing the enter key. A message appeared on the screen in big red letters.

 _Invalid Username/Password. Two attempts left._

Wolf narrowed his eye. "Problems, doctor?"

"S-s-sorry, hard to focus." Beltino ran a hand across his forehead. "I must've hit the wrong key somewhere. Let me try again."

He typed his credentials in again. The screen showed another message.

 _Invalid Username/Password. One attempt left._

Wolf growled, stepping right behind him. "For your sake…" The lupine let his breath linger on the toad's neck. "You better get it right next time."

"Of course." Beltino wiped the sweat from his brow, this time punching each key one by one, as if to make sure he wouldn't make a mistake this time. He pushed the enter key, and a nasty message appeared.

 _Too many failed logins. Your account has been locked. Contact IT support._

Snarling, Wolf grabbed Beltino round his collar and smashed his face into the concrete wall next to the terminal, shattering his glasses. He screamed, eyes shut as he felt the glass puncture into his flesh. His face burned in pain as he rubbed his hands over it, trying to brush away all the shards.

Before he could finish, Wolf whirled him back around and yelled into his face, teeth snapping with every word. "You can't remember your stupid password?! How the hell am I supposed to find what I'm looking for now?"

Beltino winced, feeling spittle stinging the wounds on his face. He couldn't speak with how blinding the pain was, but finally managed to stammer out a reply. "S-s-sorry! I don't work well under pressure!" The toad forced himself to open up one eye, the other having gotten nicked across the eyelid by one of the shards.

Wolf glowered at Beltino for a moment or two. Taking a break from speaking seemed to have calmed him down a bit. "Okay Mr. Toad, since I'm in _such a good mood_ today…" The lupine pushed him away to arm's length. "I'll give you a second chance. Do you know another way to find the case? Because if you don't, I don't need you anymore." Although he couldn't see well without glasses, Beltino recognized Wolf's hand moving towards his holstered blaster.

For Beltino, those last words hung in the air like a death sentence. Nonetheless, he stammered out a reply. "Uh, the cases might be arranged in numeric order. It's worth a—"

"Harry! Franco!" Wolf turned around, hollering at his men. "Check the racks by number! I'll stay here with Beltino."

As his compatriots ran off to search, Wolf dragged over a nearby crate and sat on it, blaster drawn and pointed in Beltino's general direction. Several minutes passed without a word. The toad trembled where he stood. Was he out of options now? As soon as those two found the case, he would be a dead man. Was there anything else he could do to get away?

"Harry!" Franco called out. "Find a forklift! Case might be high up!"

Beltino blinked. That gave him another idea. Some time ago, the IT division created an app to control the vault's forklifts with your smartphone. Personnel costs had forced the Cornerian Army to cut positions here in the vaults, so this was meant to help automate the jobs of the old workers. He'd gone to a training class on the app along with everyone else who had vault access, but that was a few months ago. Since he only came to the vaults once in a blue moon, he'd never really used the app and forgotten about it until now.

But if he could just remember how it worked, it might be just what he needed as a distraction.

Beltino knew his phone well enough to hit the buttons without looking. Maybe he could start the app with the phone still in his pocket. He entered his password, and peeked when Wolf wasn't looking. The main menu showed on the screen, as well as he could tell without glasses. If he remembered right, the forklift app was the last icon on the left on the bottom row. Tapping it, he spared another glance.

Now he saw a live camera feed on the screen, showing a forklift somewhere in this room. Where was it though? Maybe if he moved it, he would hear it. Beltino moved his finger across the screen. A pile of crates collapsed behind Wolf, exposing the forklift connected to his app.

Wolf turned around, gaping at the sight. "That thing's moving by itself?"

Beltino couldn't believe he was about to do this, but knew it was his only chance to escape. Taking a deep breath, the toad slid his finger across the touch screen as fast as he could. The forklift's rubber wheels squealed on the polished concrete floor, the machine barreling straight at Wolf. He just managed to jump out of the way before it crashed into a wall. By then Beltino was out the vault door, jumping into one of the electric carts, peeling out as he sped away. Goodness, he felt like he was in an action movie or something doing this, and it scared the hell out of him. Did Slippy do things like this with Star Fox every day?

A laser flashed past his shoulder, almost scorching his white coat. He ducked, sparing a glance back. Wolf drove after him now in the other cart, firing his blaster as he went.. Beltino weaved his cart back and forth, trying to keep the mercenary from getting a good shot. But it was hard to see much of anything without his glasses, the walls looking like giant white blurs in his vision.

One shot finally struck Beltino in the back. The toad screamed, clapping a hand over the blaster wound. The pain was so blinding he shut his eyes, unable to focus on the road ahead. With a loud crunch, the cart buried itself into the concrete wall at the end of the corridor, sending him flying head first over the steering wheel. He hit the wall with a sickening smack, sliding down the wall and coming to a rest on the cart's crumpled hood.

* * *

"Got ya, sneaky toad." Wolf holstered his blaster, stepping out of the cart.

He took off running towards the wreck and was soon at Beltino's side. The toad laid there, knocked unconscious. Wolf sighed and shook his head. He should have been paying more attention before. Was he losing his edge now that he was getting older?

Grunting, he leaned over to pick up Beltino. "Damn you're heavy for a short guy." Wolf heaved him off the wreck, carrying him over to the second electric cart. After laying the scientist in the back, the lupine took a moment to crack his neck, rotating the arm he'd used for carrying. "Makin' my job harder than it needs to be too."

Of course, Wolf was going to kill him once they found the case, so could he really blame the poor guy?

"Harry, Franco, I'm coming back," Wolf spoke into his radio. "Beltino tried sneaking away but I caught him. Keep looking."

"Roger," Franco answered.

The lupine steered the cart back into the warehouse, looking for his teammates. Despite the massive size of the space, it wasn't too hard to find them. Every sound echoed, so Wolf followed the sounds of boxes being pushed around and them calling out to each other. Rounding the corner, Wolf spotted the pair inspecting a handful of small cases stacked on an eye-level shelf.

"So, found the case yet?"

"Yeah boss, you're just in time."

Franco smiled as he held a small silver case by its handle. It almost looked like a businessman's metal briefcase, exempting the government branding and the heavy duty metallic brackets holding it closed.

Feeling a little tense, he motioned for Franco to hand it over. After the jackal passed it to him, the lupine examined it. The barcode showed the number they were after. A warm feeling of relief washed over Wolf. Until now, all they knew about the case was its number in this warehouse. The client hadn't even provided an identifying photograph or the case's dimensions and weight. He'd been afraid the item would end up being something bigger and heavier, but this was small enough to slip inside one of their backpacks. That would make things a lot easier.

"I wonder what's in that thing." Franco turned his head to look at it from all sides. He turned to the husky. "What do you think it is, Harry?"

The husky shook his head. "Dunno, but I'd really like to know."

Wolf's curiosity was aroused too. However, the client specifically said not to open it. If they did, the contract was null and void. He wasn't about to sacrifice a one hundred million credit contract for a small peek.

Franco spared a moment to look back at the rack they'd taken it off of. "Hey, there's another case here. Looks just like that one."

Everyone crowded to take a look. Sure enough, it was as Franco said. Same metallic briefcase and same heavy-duty brackets sitting on the shelf.

"Makes you think, don't it?" Harry eyed the second container. "If there's two of what's in this case, why weren't we told to get both?"

While intrigued, Wolf needed to keep his teammates on task.

"The client's contract was to steal only this case." Wolf slipped it into his backpack. "If she wanted both, she should have put it in the contract. The other case isn't our problem." He slid the backpack back over his shoulders. "Anyway, we got what we came for, so let's scram. Giichi's done a good job dealing with the security so far, but we're lucky an alarm hasn't gone off yet."

As if by cue, loud klaxons echoed through the underground vaults. Wolf cursed himself for tempting fate. Harry and Franco looked around, the lupine seeing the panic in their eyes. "Hey, look at me." He stepped over, using his hands to point their muzzles towards his face. "We're not caught yet. Let's focus on how to get out of this, okay?"

A loud groan rose up from the electric cart nearby. Wolf turned around to see Beltino still in the back, moaning but still unconscious. In all the excitement, he'd forgotten about him.

"Hmm…" A toothy smile crossed Wolf's face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Jeeps sped towards the research building, all of them screeching to a halt and surrounding it within minutes. The Cornerian soldiers within piled out, forming a perimeter and training their weapons on the doors and windows. A gunship hovered overhead, training a spotlight on the broken glass entrance door.

One more jeep pulled up amongst the others. A four man team in heavy body armor and helmets climbed out. One of them, a Dalmation, stopped to look at the surrounded research building.

"Wonder what's going on in there…" he muttered, as he checked the charge on his laser carbine. "Who'd be crazy enough to try attacking this place?"

"Good question, Sonny." A brown hedgehog stepped up next to him, grimacing. "We'll soon find out. I'm in no rush."

That was Maurice, the point man of Sonny's four-man squad. Sonny himself was the element leader. Instead of a carbine, Maurice held a metallic shield in one hand and a handheld blaster in the other. His shield contained miniaturized version of deflector shields from military spacecraft to deflect blaster shots. The field could be expanded or shrunk just by rotating a dial. Maurice would go in first and provide cover in front for Sonny and the others.

Sonny stood around with his unit, waiting for the order to go in. However, Sonny didn't feel all that afraid. He was a veteran of the Lylat Wars after all. What could this be compared to that? Some nutjob shooter with a deathwish? If so, he'd be dangerous, but also crazy and stupid, so not difficult to subdue if appropriate measures were taken.

"All armored teams!" Sonny's radio squawked. "Sweep the building! Repeat, sweep the building! Use caution. Unknown number of assailants."

"You heard the man." Sonny flicked the safety off of his carbine. "Double time it!"

Sonny's squad rushed across the open ground between the perimeter and the building itself, along with several other teams moving into the building through other entrances. Maurice ran ahead of them first, bringing up his shield and setting the deflector to a low setting as he passed through the broken glass door. Meanwhile, Sonny and the other two in the back covered with laser carbines. The sound of clomping boots echoed through the hallways, along with occasional radio chatter over the mics. Sonny's team was only inside for a few moments when someone called out.

"Help! Help! We've got wounded here!"

Sonny held up a fist to signal for the group to stop. If he recalled the layout of the building, the shouting came from the lunch room. Sonny pointed at Maurice with two fingers, then pointed down the hallway towards the canteen. _Maurice, take point._ Then he faced the other two and pointed up, spinning his fingers in the air. _You two, on me._ Maurice nodded, turning up the setting up on his deflector shield. Sonny and the other two fell in formation behind Maurice, Sonny covering ahead while the other two watched the flanks. The lunch room door was just ahead at the end of the hallway.

Someone pushed the doors open before they could get there. The four man group stopped, Maurice ducking down in front so the other three behind could aim their weapons over him. No fear touched them, no hesitation to get into formation, their training taking over.

"Stop! Identify yourselves!" Sonny called out.

Three Cornerian canine soldiers stood there, a gray and white one using his shoulder to support a scientist.

"Hey… That's Beltino," Sonny whispered. The Dalmatian knew that the toad loved working late.

One of the three unknown soldiers stepped forward, raising his hands up and letting his rifle hang by its shoulder strap. He looked like a husky by the tail. "Don't shoot! Beltino's been shot! He needs medical attention ASAP! Let us through!"

Sonny wondered who these three grunts were, but then again Beltino looked to be in really bad shape even at this distance. Red blood stained most of his white lab coat a dark shade of crimson. He needed medical care fast.

"Okay," Sonny said. "Let them through."

The team stepped aside, allowing the three soldiers to hurry through with Beltino. Sonny watched them as he left, frowning. Nonetheless, he brought his headset's mic up to his mouth. "Be advised. We've got a civilian worker down. Beltino Toad. There's three soldiers escorting him out of the building right now. Get a medical team down here fast."

Sonny watched them leave. He wanted to find out more about what happened from them, but they still needed to clear the rest of the building of hostiles. Ah well. Maybe the perimeter guard would question them and then they'd get updates over the radio. The Dalmatian signaled for his team to keep searching.

* * *

As Wolf and his two cronies turned the corner, Wolf sighed with relief. The plan was working…so far anyway. As long they kept up this act, no one was going to get in their way. They could just breeze right out of here. But it was too early to celebrate. They encountered other teams as they left, Harry or Franco repeating the same excuse of getting Beltino medical attention. Wolf thought his voice might be recognized, so he had decided to let the other two do the talking. All of the soldiers took the bait, but Wolf couldn't breathe every time they had to stop. They finally reached the broken glass door they'd used to enter the building. Spotlights bathed the pavement outside the door in blinding light compared to the building's dark interior.

"Okay pups, here we go," Wolf whispered. "Harry, you know what to do."

Harry took a look at the perimeter surrounding them, a tense but composed look on his face. He turned back to Wolf, nodding. The husky walked out first, again holding up his hands so no one would shoot. Franco walked out after him. Taking a deep breath, Wolf turned his head down and brought up the rear, shouldering Beltino and praying that the helmet and visor would be enough to conceal his identity.

Wolf glanced upwards, and then wished he hadn't. The headlights of the jeeps almost blinded him, the searchlight from the gunship overhead making it even worse. And the sheer number of soldiers, just barely visible past the lights, sent a shiver down his back. Nonetheless, he kept his face blank and marched forwards, looking down towards the ground. It felt like it took hours to cross through the light to the perimeter, Wolf feeling very naked and vulnerable under all of the eyes.

At long last they passed by the circle of jeeps. A terrier soldier rushed up to them, a white armband bearing the red cross on his shoulder.

"Here!" the terrier shouldered Beltino's other arm, helping Wolf to move him. "Just follow me. We've got a field ambulance over this way."

They walked through the crowds of soldiers, the terrier calling for them to make way. After a few moments, they were at the ambulance. It was a jeep like the others, but modified to provide medical care in the field. Wolf helped the terrier settle Beltino down onto a nearby stretcher. The terrier and another medic, this one a squirrel, went to work.

While the other medic collected supplies and looked over Beltino, the terrier questioned them. "So he was shot? Any other injuries?"

"Uh…" Harry paused, looking frozen in place. Suddenly he turned to look at Wolf, perhaps for guidance. Wolf felt a sharp terror shoot right up his back, as he averted his eye to look at the ground.

 _Don't look at me! Don't look at me! Or then_ _ **they'll**_ _look at me!_

"Yeah…" Harry recovered. "He looks like he hit his head a couple times. You may want to check for concussions."

The terrier nodded, looking back at Beltino on the stretcher. "Ok, we'll take good care of him. Are any of you hurt?" He looked back up at the three.

"Oh no, no!" Harry laughed, maybe to cover up the pants-crapping terror Wolf figured they were all feeling. "We're all fine!"

"You?" The terrier looked at Franco, not picking up on Franco's nervousness. "You hurt?"

Franco just shook his head no, not saying anything.

Then the terrier looked Wolf in the eye. "How about you sir?"

Wolf felt his body trembling, but tried not to show it. He couldn't speak for a moment. The terrier raised an eyebrow.

"PTSD?" the terrier smiled. "It's OK, you're safe now buddy. Nothing's gonna get you here."

Blissfully ignorant of the irony of that statement, the terrier patted Wolf on the shoulder. The lupine almost jumped out of his skin at the surprise physical contact. Nonetheless, Wolf forced a smile and nodded at the medic.

The terrier didn't seem to notice, as he returned his attention to Beltino. "You better stay here with me. Bet they'll wanna debrief you. I'll call the base commander and let him know you're with me."

The medic walked towards the ambulance, reaching for a radio handset…

"That's fine, that's fine!" Franco put a hand on the terrier's shoulder, getting him to stop. "We'll just go see him right now."

Wolf held his breath. The terrier frowned, looking between the three of them. Nodding, he reached for the handset again. Franco was about to reach out again, but it was too late.

"Hey, I've got the three guys who saved Beltino. They're…uh…" The terrier looked at the nametags on their uniforms. "Sandusky, Schmitz, and Smith." The medic spared a laugh. "Hmm. How about that…all S's. Okay. They'll be at your office soon." He put away the handset. "Okay. You're good to go."

And just like that, the terrier went back to his work, talking to the squirrel as they took off Beltino's shirt so they could get a better look at his wounds. Wolf looked at Franco and Harry, nodding his head in the direction of the airfield. And then Wolf started walking that way, the other two going with his cue and falling in step behind him.

"Hey, hold on!" the terrier called out.

Thinking his face must look as white as a sheet under the fur, Wolf turned around, eye wide in terror.

The terrier was smiling at them. "You did a good job. Thanks for saving Beltino. He would have died if you hadn't brought him out like this."

Wolf would have laughed at the irony of that statement if he wasn't scared out of his wits right now. Also, this reminded him a lot of how he'd first met Rachel all those years ago, right after the Lylat Wars ended.

"Don't mention it." Harry nervously grinned. "I hope he sleeps peacefully tonight."

"Yeah, I'd like that too…" the terrier's smile faded. "But I hope he wakes up soon. We need to ask him about what happened."

"Yeah…" Franco replied, sounding distant in his voice. "Well, we better hurry up and talk to the commander. See you."

"Bye." The terrier turned back to assist the other medic.

As soon as the terrier looked away, Wolf started walking, moving as fast as he could without it looking suspicious. Franco and Harry followed from behind again. They walked behind a storage building of some sort. As soon as they were out of sight, they all collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh…oh oh oh…" Wolf rubbed the back of his neck, feeling dizzy from the terror he'd just gone through. He felt as happy as hell to finally be out of that mess. It was like that feeling where you had a near death experience, and then every little thing afterwards felt wonderful and amazing. The cool night air felt like euphoria. "All right… All right…" Now that he'd semi recovered, he looked over to his compatriots. "Okay…dropship." He paused, breathing heavily. "Fifteen minutes. Be there."

And with that, the three of them separated. Despite all the close calls, Wolf felt pleased with the performance of both Franco and Harry. Normally he would have brought along Leon or Panther, but that would have just been too dangerous for a job like this. It would look suspicious if a wolf, panther, and chameleon happened to be hanging out together in this base, when a wolf, panther, and chameleon known for hanging out together also happened to be some of the most wanted men in the galaxy. So instead for this job, Wolf decided to bring along some of his lesser cronies who also happened to be canines. Wolf knew they would blend in much better in a Cornerian military base. Most of the Cornerian military was dogs after all. Looked like the strategy had paid off.

Wolf allowed himself to relax as he strode down a roadway towards the air field. It was all the better for his cover to relax, after all. There was no need to lurk in the shadows with this uniform. He nodded towards some off duty airmen as they walked down the road the other way.

 _Don't mind little ole me. Just some patrolling grunt out on the graveyard shift…_

Nobody seemed to have noticed the backpack yet, and definitely not the case within. Again, Wolf thanked his gods that they didn't have to steal anything bigger than that case. And he also thanked the gods for Giichi, the hacker who thwarted the security system. Stealing a head admin's username and password was the easy part for him. After that, Giichi spent months studying the system and making sure he wouldn't get tripped up by the safeguards. But it looked like all that hard work was about to pay off too.

Several minutes passed, and before long he saw the massive hangars of the airfield looming up ahead. As he walked past one of them, he couldn't help but get a little anxious. Sure, everything was going good now, but all kinds of other things could still go wrong. What if he turned the corner and their dropship was surrounded by soldiers? What if the dropship was just gone? What if Franco and Harry weren't there? Taking a deep breath, he stepped around the corner.

 _Ah, thank goodness._ Their dropship was right where he'd left it. It was a stolen Cornerian shuttle they'd used to sneak into the base, painted white and green. She wasn't much to look at. Basically it was a metal tube with a cockpit on one end, an exit ramp on the other, and wings in the center with hoverjets attached. When they stole it, it also came with a few uniforms and military-issue weapons, which they used to complete their disguises for this job.

Wolf noticed he was the first one back. He strode up the rear cargo ramp and took a seat on the bench. After setting down the backpack, he checked his watch. So far, eight minutes gone. Looking up, he stared at the wall on the opposite side. To pass the time, he decided to take the case out of the backpack to look at it. Wolf continued to ponder what was inside of this thing and why it was so valuable to his client. But that only occupied him for so long since he couldn't open it. Sitting here with nothing to do but wait was torture. The seconds passed as if they were hours. Every time Wolf heard a sound outside the ship he felt like he was going to jump out of his fur.

At the ten minute mark, Wolf heard footsteps approaching the rear cargo hatch. He turned his head towards the exit ramp, gripping one hand around the blaster at his hip. It was just Harry.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Wolf slumped back into his seat and let go of the gun. "You seen Franco?"

"No sir."

Wolf frowned. "Damn…" He checked his watch every couple seconds. Eleven minutes. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fourteen and a half. Rapid footsteps could be heard approaching. Both Wolf and Harry looked at each other, ready to draw and shoot at anything that ran up the ramp. It was Franco.

"'Bout time," Wolf muttered, as he walked to the cockpit.

"I'm not late! I checked my watch!"

Wolf wanted to cuss him out for nearly giving him a heart attack, but then remembered that would just slow them down in leaving. Besides, Franco was right. He wasn't late, and the two of them had done pretty good. Not bad at all, everything considered.

Clearing his head, Wolf withdrew an explosives detonator from his pocket. "Okay, the final touch." The lupine held down the arming button, and squeezed the trigger.

Two explosions ripped through the base. One destroyed the radar tower used to track aircraft around the base and in orbit. That would allow them to fly away without being picked up on radar. The other ripped through a server building, which ran the security and surveillance network of the base. That would destroy any surveillance footage with them on tape, and hopefully all traces of their hacker's meddling. They'd planted the bombs prior to intercepting Beltino to cover the final escape.

Wolf turned around and walked through the cockpit's door, settling into the pilot's seat. The engines spun up, their humming very soothing and relieving. Within moments, he was flying the shuttle out of the airbase. Everyone was silent and tense, expecting a laser blast or missile to strike the ship at any second. But Wolf continued to push the ship up, farther, and farther, and farther, until they were leaving Corneria's atmosphere behind.

As the blue ball of Corneria faded into the distance, Harry rolled a hidden cooler out from underneath one of the jump seats and opened it up. He and Franco let out a loud cheer, as they both grabbed a beer and popped them open. The bumpy ride caused them to spill some of the foamy liquid over themselves, but they didn't care. Wolf didn't care either. They'd done it! They'd gotten away with the multi-million case! Wolf grinned and chuckled, and then Franco stepped into the cockpit offered him a beer. He was flying an aircraft, but…

"Thanks." Wolf smiled as he accepted the beer from the jackal and took a little sip, before he put it down in a nearby cup holder.

Corneria fell further and further behind, becoming nothing but a sapphire speck in the distance. In the meantime, the asteroid field Meteo came up into view. Wolf maneuvered the shuttle around the flying rocks like he was just flying his Wolfen. Even after all these years, Wolf still loved the simple pleasure of just flying. Sometimes it felt like nothing else existed while he was doing it. It was the perfect way to relax after a successful infiltration. He was about to take another swig and-

"Attention, stolen Cornerian shuttle!" the radio barked at him.

Wolf pulled the bottle away so fast he spilled some on his lap by accident. Wolf stared at the radio, unable to believe it. They'd come so far, and worked so hard to get to this moment. Surely fate wouldn't take that away from them now. He prayed he'd just imagined that and-

"This is Commander Bill Grey from the Katina frontline base! We know you're that shuttle that snuck out of the CCSNB!"

"No…" Wolf's shock turned to anger. "No. No. No. No!"

Up ahead, a few Cornerian fighters in their signature green and white paint could be seen. They flew past the shuttle and took up formation behind.

"You will divert your course back to the CCSNB or you will be shot down! You have one minute to comply!"

Growling, Wolf dropped the beer bottle, letting it shatter on the floor. He clenched his hands around the flight stick. He had **not** come this far only to get captured by some lowlife hack pilot of the Cornerian government. There was no goddamn way he was going to let it end like this.

"Hang onto something you two! This is going to get rough!"

Wolf put on the thrusters and accelerated full blast through asteroid field. It was dangerous to take a large ship deeper in there, but out in the open they would be sitting ducks. They had no other choice. The asteroid field also had a number of warp fields. Wolf intended to take one that would get him out of this sector and some place safer.

"Last warning!" Bill shouted over the radio. "Divert or you will be shot down!"

"Screw you," Wolf snarled, and then he broke the connection.

Bill answered back with laser blasts. They flashed past the hull, illuminating it and nearby rocks in a vivid green color. Since the shuttle was unarmed, Wolf put as much power as he could spare on the rear shields. It wasn't a moment too soon, as a few laser blasts pranged off the back of the ship. The shield status briefly flickered between green and yellow on the ship's displays. They were holding…for now.

Wolf slammed the stick forward, sending the ship into a dive. Two massive asteroids closed in on either side. Instead of slowing down or turning away, he aimed directly for the shrinking gap. The shuttle passed through close enough for Wolf to see the asteroids' rocky texture in minute detail, before the boulders smacked together.

However, the radar showed Bill catching up again, as more laser blasts struck the rear of the ship, sending the shield status into yellow. Wolf cursed having to fly this oversized lump instead of his usual Wolfen. If he had that today, it would be Bill running away instead of him.

Wolf continued to dodge and weave as best as he could, cutting very close to the asteroids and daring the Cornerian fighters to follow. However, he noted with irritation that Bill appeared to have figured out the strategy. Instead of following the shuttle directly, Bill used his craft's superior mobility and speed to take longer but safer pathways through the field, while keeping Wolf in his sights. Every time Wolf tried a daring maneuver through a cluster of rocks, Bill would simply fly around the cluster and catch up again at the other side. More laser blasts lit up the rear of the ship.

Wolf found his shields getting chipped away the longer the chase went on. The shuttle's shield display switched from orange to red. A few more shots and Wolf would have no more shields. Franco and Harry were getting anxious in the cargo bay, as they looked through the open door at Wolf's instrument panel. All of the gauges and instruments slipped into the red, and alarms began to echo through the cabin.

"Boss…are we—" Franco started.

"Quiet!"

Wolf knew that there was a warp field up ahead, as both his robotic eyepatch and regular eye scanned for the telltale blue aura. That was his planned escape route once they left Corneria. Once they were in the warp field, everything would be fine. He let that thought be the anchor for his calmness.

Sure enough, a few moments later he saw the blue warp field's aura up ahead, and guided the shuttle for it. Bill lit up the back of the ship with several more laser blasts. The rear shield's indicator changed to black, indicating the rear shield was now down. Bill's shots started to strike the shuttle dierctly, causing a shower of sparks to spit out of the back cargo hatch. The shuttle shook and vibrated as the lasers made contact. Ignoring the alarms, Wolf hit the thruster as hard as he could, willing the ship to go faster towards the warp portal. Bill let out one more stream of blasts, but by then the shuttle was through the portal.

The blackness of space became a blinding whiteness. Wolf shut his eyes against it, but before long the white melted away to reveal a rainbow-colored aura surrounding the ship. They were in the warp zone now. Wolf checked the radar, but Bill and the other fighter were no longer with them. Wolf laughed in triumph.

"Oh wow…" Wolf took his helmet off, wiping his brow. "Getting too old for this shit."

"Boss, sorry to ask this but—"

"Don't worry about it. Just ask." Wolf chuckled.

"Are we really safe this time?"

"Yeah…this time we should be. We'll be long gone by the time Bill can follow us through that portal. It's closed up again now." Wolf looked ahead, guiding the craft through the rainbow-colored dimension and dodging the psychedelic asteroids. It felt very soothing and relaxing after all they'd been through.

"All right… Fortuna here we come."

Sometime later, a bright flash of light illuminated the space over Fortuna. The stolen Cornerian dropship emerged from the warp hole. Wolf maneuvered the ship into orbit around the planet, heading for Fortuna's nearby moon, Genma. The dropship floated peacefully past the vast green jungles far below. Sure most of the gauges were still in the red, but they were almost back to the Retribution. It was Wolf's mothership, and Star Wolf's new home after being driven out of the Sargasso Space Station a year ago by Cornerian forces. Normally thinking about that caused Wolf to fume for a while, but he was just too tired and relieved about this job coming to an end to care-

Metallic shrieking filled the rear of the cabin. Wolf turned around, looking through the cockpit's door. The rear hatch. Wolf could see it buckling and twisting, spitting sparks everywhere. Its structural integrity was compromised from the chase before. Franco and Harry stared at it, frozen to their seats. With a mighty howling and screeching of metal, the rear hatch completely blew off, exposing the inside of the ship to the vacuum.

* * *

 _A/N: In my original draft, this chapter was quite a bit shorter at 3.5k words. It didn't take as long for Wolf and his buddies to get out of the base. However, I thought their escape felt a little too quick and easy, so I decided to expand that part and make it more elaborate. Thus we are now at 4.2k words, not counting author's notes. It was actually a lot of fun to do that. I was laughing the entire time I was writing that bit with the medic terrier. Ah…I may like Wolf as a character, but it's so much fun putting him through crap like this. I love it. It definitely won't be the last time I do it :)_

 _Everything after Wolf flying away from the base is mostly the same though. I rearranged the order of some events and cut off the chapter in a different place than before, but I still kept most of the old text. Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter._

 _For everyone who's wondering where Panther and Leon are, don't worry. They'll be coming along in a chapter or two. Like Wolf says, he had his reasons for not bringing them along on this mission. I had my reasons too, as you can probably see now. Fox and his buddies will be along pretty soon too, even if they are the side characters this time around._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

After the transport's rear hatch popped off, everything not nailed down flew towards the new hole. The benches ripped right from their supports, taking Harry and Franco along with them. They didn't even have time to cry out. Wolf saw the case flying towards the rear door and— The transport's safety system slammed the cockpit's vacuum-sealed door closed. It all happened so fast that Wolf couldn't believe it had happened at first. He just stared blank-faced at the closed door, wondering if this was just a bad dream.

 _The case…_

He unbuckled himself from the pilot's chair, running to look through the door's small porthole window.

"Oh, god…"

The case was still in the rear cabin, thank goodness. By some stroke of sheer luck, the case's handle caught onto a hook mounted on the wall. It wobbled back and forth in zero gravity, with no telling how long before it would get free and float away.

"It's all right… It's all right…" Wolf chanted, as if it were a magic spell to hold the case in place.

If he could just take it nice and easy getting back to the _Retribution_ , maybe the case would stay where it was and this job would be done. Even though he needed to get back into the pilot's seat, Wolf felt afraid to move away from the window. He thought the case might fly away as soon as he took his eye off of it. If only he could open this door… That case was so near and yet so far away.

After a minute or so, Wolf worked up the nerve to get back into the chair and buckled his seatbelt back. The lupine ran a quick diagnostic check on the shuttle's systems. More bad news. The computer reported both engines as damaged. Not to mention Fortuna's gravity was now pulling him to the surface. The damaged engines wouldn't be strong enough to resist it.

"Damn it!" Wolf smashed his fist onto the console, leaving a little scruff mark on the metal.

Wolf wanted to hit it a few more times for good measure, but didn't want to risk crippling the ship any more than it already was. Closing his eye, he took a deep breath. He needed to relax. He needed to think through how he was going to get through this. A plan started to form in his head.

The engines were puttering and he'd have to land on Fortuna now, but Wolf thought he could glide into a crash landing. He'd just let gravity bring him down and only turn up the engines to soften the final impact. Wolf figured that he wouldn't have to worry about help even without comms. The _Retribution_ was expecting him, so no doubt they'd spot him on radar. They'd recognize the ship, and they'd see him go down. Someone would be along to help him before long. He just needed to stay near the shuttle and wait. In the meantime, he'd check to see if the case was still in the back after landing.

 _Oh and I hope it is… I do not want to tell Sable that the case is missing. She was already pissy enough just giving us this job._

If the case was gone, Wolf was _not_ looking forward to returning back to his mothership empty-handed. If there's one thing Star Wolf didn't need now, it was more failures on top of what they'd been through over the past couple years.

Despite losing to Star Fox during the Lylat War, Wolf figured he did well to turn around Star Wolf after that. Using his charisma and popularity within the old Venomian army, he'd attracted many of its remnants to his side. He even got to take over Venom's old space station in the Sargasso Space Zone as his hideout. Those were good times. Star Wolf had just about anything a PMC would ever need.

And then Star Fox came along and blew it all to hell, just before the Aparoid invasion. Wolf really hated that it wasn't even over something he did. Fox was looking for that idiot Pigma. Wolf had kicked him out of Star Wolf years before then. While Star Wolf was nothing but killers and thieves, Wolf demanded trust and respect amongst his killers and thieves. Without trust and respect Star Wolf would tear itself apart from the inside. Pigma broke those rules.

But none of that stopped Fox and his annoying friends from blowing up half of the space station trying to find him. Wolf didn't have the resources to repair the station after such an attack. Even if he did it wouldn't have mattered, because the Cornerian Army soon followed in Fox's wake to wipe out what was left, like always. So all Wolf had left now was one assault carrier that survived the attack, plus whatever he'd managed to cobble onto it before the cavalry arrived. He decided to rechristen his new mother ship the _Retribution_ , because that's what he was going to give to all of his enemies once Star Wolf got back on its feet again.

 _And I was_ this _close to turning all of that around! Damn the Cornerian Army cowards. They always send in Fox to do all the hard work, and then they clean up whatever's left. Like when they sent Bill to shoot down an unarmed shuttle._

Wolf pointed the shuttle's nose upwards, as he prepared for reentry. Most of the dials hovered in the red, so he prayed his ride would hold together a bit longer. Steam and flames began to course around the hardened bottom of the ship. Wolf's heart pounded as he waited for the atmospheric entry to complete.

The flames gave way to blue skies. A blanket of clouds concealed the jungles below from view. Not liking where this was going, Wolf glided under them. The ship started getting pelted with raindrops. A lot of them. He'd just entered a violent tropical storm. Visibility reduced to almost nothing within seconds. Spread out below, Wolf couldn't see anything but a solid carpet of dark green trees. No suitable landing zones anywhere. Growling, Wolf urged his ship onwards.

Another alarm klaxon blared through the cockpit. Wolf looked down at the ship's readout. The port side engine flashed red on the display, before turning black. Narrowing his eyes, he looked out to the left. What was left of the ship's little blue flame sputtered out and died, leaving just one engine to fly on. The ship started to list to the left, with the starboard engine now struggling by itself to keep the shuttle up in the air.

Growling, Wolf pulled the stick hard upwards, willing the shuttle to fly for as long as possible. But no matter how hard he pulled back, the ship continued its inevitable descent into the jungle. Like it or not, it seemed he was going to have to smash through the trees when he landed.

Wolf snapped his head back and forth, looking out over the jungle for a suitable landing zone. But he still couldn't see anything except for a solid blanket of treetops. After a second desperate search, he finally spotted a grassy field in the distance. But already he could hear the bottom of the shuttle grazing against the tops of the taller trees underneath.

Fixing his gaze on the clearing, Wolf fired up the remaining starboard engine with all the power it had left, as he flipped it over to VTOL mode. The engine howled in protest as it tried to keep the shuttle aloft, not designed to bear the weight of the ship alone. The shuttle went into a 45 degree slant downwards and to the left, looking as if it were held in the air by a string tied to the starboard wing. Wolf chewed his lip as he held onto the controls, willing the shuttle to just stay up in the air a bit longer.

The shuttle cleared the last of the trees, just before the tip of the port side wing scraped along the ground. That tore off what remained of the port side engine, as the ship pivoted on the scraping point. With a hard landing, the fuselage crashed to the ground, spinning around and sliding backwards in the wet grass before the whole ship finally to a halt. The starboard engine exhaled a cloud of black smoke, now completely ruined. A silence settled back over the clearing, disrupted only by the flowing wind and the pitter patter of rain drops on the cooling metal.

Wolf lay back in his seat, breathing a sigh of relief. Even though he needed to check on the case in back, he figured that he deserved a little break after going through all that that. Wolf melted into the chair, just listening to the soothing sounds of the rain falling and hissing as it struck the hot metal. The stormy winds blasted the tall grass back and forth in a swaying, relaxing motion. Or at least, where the crashing ship hadn't torn a gash in the ground. It was a shame he couldn't sit here for a bit longer and take a nap. Wolf just realized how tired he felt, considering he had been up for the last eighteen hours preparing and then executing this mission.

Willing himself on, he moved to unbuckle himself, but then a violent bout of nausea struck him. Wolf sat very still and waited for it to pass. However, it didn't pass. In fact, he felt it getting worse as something rose up his throat. Wolf turned his head towards the floor next to the seat, and let out a deluge of vomit. He sat there for a bit, but he could feel another helping coming up. More vomit on top of the first. He breathed hard, looking at the pile and wondering why he felt sick all of a sudden. Was it because of the crash? In any case, that seemed to be the last of the contents in his stomach. He didn't think any more would be coming up. Without any rags on hand, he wiped his face with the back of his hand.

Stepping up to the door, Wolf pulled the handle but realized it was jammed shut. After some more yanks, the door opened up with a harsh screech of metal. Wolf gazed around the cabin, and felt his heart sink.

The case was gone. It hadn't made it to the surface with him.

"Shit…"

So that meant it had fallen out somewhere on the way down, and now it was somewhere out there in the goddamned jungle, and he was going to have to hunt it down. A fresh bout of nausea coursed through his system, as he looked through the open rear hatch. The rain poured down in curtains, looking almost like a waterfall. And staying by the ship was the only way to ensure he'd be found.

 _Well, screw all of that. It's one hundred million goddamned credits. I'm going out there._

He stepped back into the cockpit, snatching his laser rifle and helmet off of the floor. He checked the charge on the rifle, before slipping the helmet back on. Taking a deep breath, Wolf walked outside through the rear hatch and into the storm. The rain drops began pounding down hard on his helmet and shoulders. Within seconds it was as if he'd walked into the shower while fully clothed. Sighing, Wolf pulled the helmet closer to his brow and shut the visor, to keep the water from dripping into his one good eye. At least the rain gave him something to clean up with. He turned his mouth up to the sky, taking in the water before spitting it back out. That helped get rid of the aftertaste of the vomit. He also wiped the moisture off of his uniform and used it to clean his hands.

After his improvised cleanup, Wolf walked around to the front of what remained of the shuttle's body. His eye followed the trail of upturned earth, towards the trees on the other side of the clearing. Some of the trees had their tops ripped off by the crashing ship, showing him the path he'd taken while crashing to the ground. That would be the direction to go in. The case would have dropped out somewhere along his flight path. He walked across the clearing through the thick grass, having to push it aside since it grew to shoulder height. After a few minutes, he reached the tree line.

Pushing aside the first frond, Wolf found himself swallowed up by the vegetation of the jungle. Bushes, large leaves, and trees pressed in on all sides. He couldn't even see the clearing where he landed after just thirty seconds of walking in the foliage. In fact, at no point was he able to see farther ahead than a few meters. Finding _anything_ in a jungle like this was going to be a nightmare, but he pressed onwards, keeping an eye out for a glint of the shiny case.

The ground turned upwards. Before long, Wolf discovered he was not walking up a grade, but a steep hill with running water and rock formations. The rain slicked the rocks to where he couldn't get a steady grip as he climbed over them. At one point he slid and fell backwards, falling into a nice, cold mud bog. The entire back side of his uniform got covered in the sticky goo.

"This is **stupid**!" he shouted to no one in particular, as he hauled himself out of the muck and started his climb again. " **Goddamn you to hell Bill**!"

 _If he hadn't shot up my ship, I wouldn't be stuck out here doing this. After I kill Fox, Bill's next._

Upwards he continued, fighting with the muck, the rain, and the thick brush, not to mention his general tiredness. By this point, water saturated his uniform. It weighed him down and chilled his body. Soon, Wolf felt as though he wore ice instead of cloth. But the thought of one hundred million credits kept him focused on his task.

Forty minutes of being cold, wet, tired, and miserable passed, with no sign of the case anywhere. The queasy feelings of nausea returned again, although this time Wolf had nothing to throw up. Again he wondered why he felt so sick all of a sudden. Was it everything he'd been through over the past couple dozen hours? A lack of sleep, sneaking into the base, being shot at by fighters, and then the crash landing? Or was it something he ate? Or had he caught a bug spreading through the _Retribution_? You couldn't get around living in tight quarters in space, after all, and most of his men weren't models of hygiene. Hell, it could be a combination of all of those things. Wolf just never remembered a time when he all of a sudden felt so sick during a mission.

But then Wolf saw something that lifted his spirits a little. Up ahead, the trees gave way to show a huge drop off. He could get a better vantage of his surroundings from there. Maybe he could even spot the case from up high. With sudden vigor in his legs, he rushed to the cliff's edge. But when he got to the vista, his wet clothes felt a lot colder, and the rifle felt a lot heavier. The storm reduced his visibility to about half a kilometer. Nothing but more and more trees lay out beneath him, an endless ocean of them.

A flood of distressing questions filled his mind. Was he still going the right way? What if he'd passed by the case due to poor visibility? Or what if he still had a much further walk to go to find it? Where was he in relation to the shuttle right now? How far had he walked?

As much as Wolf hated to admit it, he'd been very stupid to go out in the jungle and just hope to stumble across the case, especially while tired and sick. The thought of all that money just blinded him to logic and reason. Sighing, Wolf turned back around. He found a somewhat dry rock sheltered by some large palm fronds, and took shelter there. Wolf figured he'd rest for a bit, hike back to the shuttle, and wait for pickup. Then after pickup, he'd get all his grunts scouring the jungle for this case. Of course, Wolf prayed he wouldn't get lost on the way back.

Once he felt like he had his strength back, Wolf stood up, stretching his arms and stomping his feet to get some of the feeling back in them. The coldness had started to numb and dull the sensations in them. He stepped out from under the fronds, and took one last look from the cliff's top. Suddenly, the nausea washed over Wolf in waves. Not to mention he felt like someone was taking a drill to his head. The headache's pain felt most exquisite. And then his veins felt as if they were on fire. Moaning, Wolf dropped to his knees on the jungle floor, closing his eyes. The pain increased to an unbearable level, as Wolf curled up on the ground in an attempt to make it feel better. It didn't work. Wolf opened his eye again, but now he couldn't see anything but a swirl of green, brown, and gray. Everything became a blur in his vision.

 _Am I going to die?_

Wolf never considered the possibility, but it felt very real right now. How disgraceful to die of the jungle flu or whatever it was instead of in combat. If he didn't make it back to the shuttle, the _Retribution's_ crew would probably never find him. At any cost, he needed to get back now. He tried to haul himself back up off of the ground, but his arms and legs just refused to cooperate. They felt as though they were made of lead, and with about as much feeling. His blurry vision went dark, and he slipped under…

* * *

Slippy twisted and turned in his sleep, bundled up underneath every blanket he had in his cabin on the _Great Fox II_. He wore a few different night shirts at the same time, and a tent even covered the bed to trap more body heat. Slippy still felt cold and shivered relentlessly. He supposed there just wasn't much he could do, considering his four-legged ancestors were all cold-blooded.

"Stupid Aparoids…" Slippy muttered in his sleep, for about the thousandth time in the past two years.

If they hadn't lost the _Great Fox_ during the Aparoid invasion, Slippy probably wouldn't be suffering through this right now. The _Great Fox_ was custom built to order by Fox's father James McCloud, and consequently it was very expensive. The reward General Pepper gave them for defeating the Aparoids wasn't near enough to get an equal replacement.

So with their limited funds, Star Fox purchased a decommissioned Cornerian assault carrier and upgraded it instead of ordering a new custom mothership. Every day on this ship reminded Slippy of how much better the first _Great Fox_ was in the old days. He had a lab on the old ship with custom-built machines, tools, and computers, and it took him years to put all of that together. All of it was gone with _Great Fox_ Mk.1.

Plus on this new ship, Fox imposed all these new rations and limitations to save money for expenses and payments. Water rations, food rations, travel restrictions, heat turned down way too low, half the lights in the ship turned off, more rations, more limits, more cuts, on, and on, and on, and on, and on… Slippy knew Fox from childhood, but this was putting a strain on their friendship.

Plus, all of Fox's other wingmen left Star Fox a long time ago. Slippy was the only one left. Sure, the others had various other reasons for taking off, but the new rules on the ship just encouraged them to go sooner. Falco was a free spirit, and he hated being stuck with any group of people for too long. So he'd taken off, and he was probably running around with Katt or something right now. Peppy said he was getting too old to live the mercenary life style, so he took up a job with the Cornerian Navy. And Krystal… She'd requested to leave the team for three months to take care of something outside of Lylat. But that was over half a year ago now and there was no sign of her coming back. Slippy could see it was breaking Fox's heart waiting for her...

 _Beep beep beep!_

Slippy groaned from the beeping noise, as he drew the covers tighter over himself. However, it continued to pound away at his ears. At first he thought it was his alarm clock, but then he looked at the clock on the nightstand. It showed 2:00 am. Then it hit him. It was the ship's intercom system, and that was most likely ROB calling for him. While the flesh-and-blood crew slept, ROB monitored the _Great Fox II_ for them. Fox told ROB to only wake them for emergencies, so no doubt it was something very important. That realization got Slippy moving. He slid out of bed and pressed the button to accept the call. ROB's face shimmered into view on the small monitor.

"Slippy, apologies for waking you," he said in his usual droning voice, "but there is an urgent transmission from Corneria for you."

"From who?"

"Peppy, calling from the Corneria City Space Navy Base. I will patch it in."

ROB's face disappeared from the screen. As he waited for Peppy's face to take its place, Slippy wondered what this could be about. The hare's face popped into view a few seconds later. If Slippy wasn't afraid of what the news would be, he was now. Peppy looked short of breath, wild-eyed as his pupils darted around. He looked like he'd been in a hurry to make contact.

"Slippy?" he asked, his voice sounding rushed.

"Yeah, what?"

"It's your father. He's been shot."

Slippy blinked, his mouth dropping open slightly. Had he heard that right? "You said…he was shot?"

"Yes…about thirty minutes ago, and it happened on base too. I wanted to call you as soon as I found out. A couple of gunmen snuck into the base with a stolen shuttle, and they flew off. We don't know what they were doing here yet."

Slippy found himself at a loss for words, staring back at Peppy. He shook his head, to help get him out of the shock.

"Is my dad OK? How is he?"

"Don't worry, he's alive but unconscious. He's been shot twice in the back and he hit his head on something. I'm sorry but I haven't seen him personally yet, so I don't know his exact condition."

"Shot twice in the back…?" Slippy repeated, incredulous. His eyes narrowed, as he pictured what the hare just said. Who would do such a thing to someone like his father? A rare flash of anger tinged Slippy's words. "I want to know who did it!"

"We're still trying to find out ourselves..." Peppy sighed, as he looked at the floor. He appeared embarrassed that he didn't know more. As if to apologize, he turned back to the camera. "Listen… If you want to come see him, we're moving him to the base's hospital. I'll tell the tower to let the _Great Fox II_ land at the airfield. I'll try to find out as much as I can in the meantime, OK?"

Slippy didn't respond. His mind couldn't process the idea that his father had been shot. He couldn't think of a more loving, caring person in the galaxy than his dad. He wouldn't hurt anyone over anything. Why…why would someone want to shoot a person like that? It made no sense. It was the last thing he expected to happen to his father.

"Slippy…" Peppy called out, moving his face closer to the camera. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah….yeah…" Slippy wiped the sweat from his brow. "It's just….I-I can't believe this at all."

"You're not the only one who's surprised. Anyway, just get over here. I think if your dad were awake, he'd want you here. The _Great Fox II_ is near Corneria right now, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is…" Slippy croaked out, a little tear running down his face. "Okay. I'll go get Fox. Thanks Peppy."

"No problem Slip. We'll see you soon."

The screen went dark. While Slippy knew that he should get going, he stood there staring at the blackness for a moment. He needed to sort through his feelings. It was an awful lot to take in with knowing that someone shot his father.

A gentle knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

"Slippy…can I come in?" He heard Fox's voice.

Slippy pressed the open button, and the cabin door whooshed open. Fox stood there, dressed in a tank top and pajama pants. Due to tossing and turning in bed, his trademark mohawk laid askew, and most of the rest of his fur looked matted and twisted. Nonetheless, Slippy felt very grateful to not be alone with his thoughts now.

"I was on my way to the bathroom, but then I heard you talking to Peppy." Fox rubbed the back of his head, looking embarrassed about the eavesdropping.

Slippy didn't care right now though.

"Did I hear right? Your dad got shot?"

"Y-yeah…" Slippy found it difficult to admit. Tears streamed his face in earnest. "I can't believe it."

Fox looked down at his friend, before he held his arms out. Slippy accepted the hug. The toad buried his face into Fox's chest, as the tears stained the dirty undershirt. It was like they were blood relatives.

"I've been here before Slip," Fox said. "This feels like when my dad went MIA."

The toad turned his face up to Fox, as he wiped away his tears. "Is it all right Fox? I know we're tight on fuel and all, but can we go see my dad?"

"Of course Slippy," Fox said it without hesitation, smiling at his friend. He punched commands into Slippy's wall mounted monitor, hailing the bridge again. "ROB, set a course for the CCSNB. Make it snappy."

* * *

 _A/N: You know, I thought having the text prewritten would allow me to post faster, but I sure do feel like I'm taking my sweet time about it. It's because I really want to post a chapter of Love is Blind, then post a Hazardous Contents chapter. That way the plots of both stories stay in my head, and they both get attention. But it sure does delay Hazardous Contents a lot more than it needs to._

 _Like with this chapter, I didn't change much at all compared to my old draft from a year and a half ago, or so. The biggest change is that Harry and Franco (along with the case) got blown out of the ship while they were in the warp zone, and Wolf followed the case from orbit down to Fortuna but lost track of it in the storm at the chapter's beginning. However, it really bothered me that a case could survive reentry and then a hard impact with the surface of a planet, with the contents being no worse for wear. I explained it away by saying "oh, the case is made of some super-duper science-fictiony metal that Corneria uses in its star ships" but I still didn't like this plot detail. So I decided to redo this scene a little bit where the case fell out of Wolf's ship after entering the atmosphere._

 _Aside from that, I basically just proofread it and reworded things where they felt awkward. Hope you enjoy. Also, hope you enjoy Star Fox getting some attention at last._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **Music: GRID 2 Game OST – Adrenaline Rush (Youtube)**

* * *

Storm clouds colored the Zoness sky and everything below puke green. Heavy raindrops pounded down while lightning and thunder rocked the sky. High above the ocean, a G-Zero course curved and darted through a maze of dark towers and metal works. In spite of the weather, dozens of G-Zero pilots raced around the track, spraying mists of water wherever they went and even drowning out nature's thunder on occasion. Cheering crowds filled the sold-out stands, defying the weather with raincoats and umbrellas.

However, all good things must come to an end.

The leaderboard announced three G-Zero machines entering the final lap: _Silver Shadow_ held first place with _Yellow Mistico_ right behind him, while _Rosso Cavallo_ trailed in a distant third. The crowd went wild as they watched _Silver_ and _Yellow_ duel each other across the circuit. A few observers noticed _Rosso_ closing in on the other two. _Rosso's_ sector and lap times were way faster. At the rate he was going, some murmured this might become a three-way battle to the finish.

 _Rosso Cavallo_ entered the last half of the Zoness circuit, rocketing along and looking like nothing more than a crimson blur to the spectators. If an observer could slow down time, they'd see a low slung, snake-like curvaceous machine. Golden lines accented the curves of the red bodywork, further adding to the slippery looks. A rear wing the size of a park bench stood tall in back, while two massive jet engines pushed it forward. _G. Twinkieland_ could be seen in white cursive script under the cockpit's canopy, next to the red, black, and green flag of the planet Thaljista.

While the audience jumped on its feet and cheered as _Rosso_ flew past, the pilot heard none of it over the screaming jet engines. The road held Giichi Twinkieland's full attention, the stands already a speck in his rearview mirror. He blasted along at over 800 km/h as raindrops slammed into the glass canopy like bullets. First and second held the lead by several seconds, and the race would be over within the next minute. Giichi wanted that first place podium, and nothing was going to stop him.

The track dived downwards and skimmed above the stormy, slimy seas. Tall waves crashed against the sides of the track, spraying the canopy with the ocean's sludge. G-Zero racers came with a special coating to help moisture slide off the glass, but even the advanced coating struggled to handle the slime.

Nonetheless, Giichi maintained pace while he waited for the glass to clear. Like a soldier in war, a racer needed to use every tool available to achieve victory. His memory filled in the gaps where his eyes could not see, since he'd raced on this track many times before. To assist his memory, he used the towers and cranes above as reference points for his location.

As the sludge cleared away, the track curved back upwards. That signaled the approach to one of the most dangerous turns on the Zoness circuit: the Kink. The Kink was a slight-right hander, and a real gut-check. Use the correct line and you could blast through it without laying off the gas. Misjudge the apex while going full speed, and you'd smash into the left wall. Heaven or hell. To win, Giichi needed to take it at top speed.

Two towers approached, one on the left side of the track and then one further away on the right. The first one marked where to start turning for the Kink, while the second marked the Kink's apex. Giichi needed to hit both marks on the dot. He moved to the far left side of the track for the approach. The barrier flashed past his machine at 900 km/h, just centimeters away from the car's body. Were he not enclosed in an armored cockpit, Giichi could almost reach out and touch the wall.

The first tower on the left flashed past. Giichi nudged the stick over to the right, tracking the _Rosso Cavallo_ inwards towards the apex. His hand moved the stick with the serenity and smoothness of a tai chi master, at odds with the car's crazy speed. Reaching the right side of the track, he almost scraped against the other barrier. The _Cavallo_ rumbled as it flew over a rough patch beneath the second tower. The rough patch indicated the apex, so Giichi eased his grip on the stick and allowed the car to drift back to the other side of the road. As he completed the out-in-out maneuver at full throttle, Giichi spared a small smile.

But only thirty more seconds remained before the race's end. After a quick left-hander, the two remaining cars came into sight: the _Yellow Mistico_ and the _Silver Shadow_. They moved so close together, it looked like a chain connected them. _Yellow_ danced back and forth across _Silver's_ rear bumper, laying on the pressure as he searched for a way past. Equally as alert, _Silver_ juked back and forth to hold the best line and block the road. Up ahead, a tall oil tower loomed above the track. The final 210-degree carousel turn curved clockwise around the bottom of the structure. After that, the finish line would be within spitting distance. Whoever came out in the lead after the final turn would win.

 _Silver_ moved left to take the optimal racing line on the outside as the carousel approached. _Yellow_ moved to the inside on the right, looking like he wanted to try late braking. That would cost _Yellow_ speed on the corner's exit, but it would probably get _Yellow_ out in front while blocking _Silver's_ out-in-out line. That left the carousel's outside open in the middle of the turn… While it would be a slow line, it played to the strengths of Giichi's machine. The _Cavallo_ weighed a lot less than the other two machines, giving it lots of cornering power. Giichi had less straight line speed than the other two, but he could afford to take the turn at a much higher speed, and with more varied lines. That would cinch him the win.

Giichi took a deep breath, as he kept on his car on the left, throwing himself at over 1000 km/h towards the outer barrier. At the correct point, Giichi slammed hard on the brake pedals. Flaps shot up on the front of the car, while the rear spoiler turned downwards to increase drag. Letting off the brakes, he skimmed along next to the outer barrier at high speed.

Meanwhile, _Yellow_ did as Giichi predicted, going inside and slamming on his brakes late to block _Silver_. _Silver_ turned inwards, but then he bumped off of _Yellow_ , bouncing towards the outside of the turn…right into Giichi's path. Giichi's eyes popped open, but his hands and feet moved before his conscious brain even thought about dodging the machine. He flared the right-hand air brakes while juking the stick in the same direction, allowing the car to turn tighter to the right and just narrowly missing the back of _Silver_. _Yellow_ cleared the apex, but he exited the turn slow since he had apexed early to block _Silver_ at the start of the turn.

 _Time to pounce._

Giichi put on the machine's turbo boost just after he cleared the midway point of the turn, the extra power sending his back end into a drift. _Yellow_ , seeing Giichi shooting past, got hard on the gas as the road straightened out. However, it looked like he'd spent all his boost trying to keep up with _Silver_ , and had none left for the final straight. Giichi left _Yellow_ in the dust, the _Rosso Cavallo_ rocketing through a slight left kink and down the final stretch. Crossing the finish line, Giichi breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Wild cheers went up around the _Retribution's_ recreational room, the crowd gathered around a large holoscreen TV in the corner playing a game of G-Zero GX. Giichi jumped off the couch with controller in hand, the yellow sand cat laughing and taking a bow to the mercenaries watching the game. Then he turned to a pissed off hyena and bulldog sitting on the next couch over, the drivers of _Silver Shadow_ and _Yellow Mistico_.

"Loooooosers!" Giichi made an L-sign on his forehead with his fingers. "Losers the both of ya! Haha!"

The hyena folded his arms tight around himself, as if hoping he could make himself small enough to not be seen. The bulldog gave Giichi a glare that only a bulldog could, with his thick jowls and sharp teeth poking out from under his muzzle.

One of the hyena's friends, another hyena himself, laughed and patted his friend on the shoulder. "He gave you a twenty second head start, and he still beat both of you!"

"Oh shut up Ed!" The hyena jumped off the couch, turning around to throw a punch at his friend. However, Ed saw it coming and dodged out of the way.

"Okay, okay…" Giichi chuckled, calming down. "You know our bet. I doubled down on beating both of you with that handicap. Pay up." Giichi smacked his hand for emphasis.

Grumbling, the hyena and bulldog withdrew two messy wads of credit bills from their pockets, tossing them on the old, scratched up coffee table in front of the TV. As they walked off, they pushed their way through the jeering Star Wolf grunts watching the game.

With the game over, the crowd dispersed, going to other activities around the metallic-walled rec room. Some went over to the pool tables, bathed in soft light beneath old stained-glass lamps that looked at odds with the spaceship interior. Others went to play darts in another corner, an occasional thump sounding out when the dart hit the target, or a loud and humiliating clang if the metal wall got struck instead. Others gathered around a bar with a polished cherry wood top, the more drunken ones adding slurs, yelling, and laughter to the soundtrack of the room. Harsh fluorescent lights revealed clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke wafting in the air.

Meanwhile, Giichi just smiled over his win and counted the credit bills, soon stuffing it into his wallet. With that done, Giichi realized his eyes felt very dry. He had not blinked once during that last stretch of the race. After closing and opening his green slit eyes several times, the sand cat let out a big yawn, his ears rotating around backwards in the process before snapping forwards again as the yawn finished.

Giichi decided he would go back to his room now. While the he felt more comfortable hanging around the mercenaries after a few months of being here, the sand cat never truly felt like he belonged on this ship. Yeah, Wolf O'Donnell paid him a pretty penny to hack the CCSNB's computer network, but he was just a computer nerd. He looked very out of place in this room with his plain red hoodie and blue jeans, while everyone else looked like a raider, a pirate, an irregular, or what have you. Wolf assured Giichi he'd deal swiftly with anybody trying to harass him, but of course Wolf wasn't on the ship right now.

Giichi started for the doorway, cutting through the people milling about. The task turned out to be harder than he thought it would be. The _Retribution_ was waiting for Wolf, without much work to do in the meantime. So a huge portion of the crew filled the room, turning the trek to the exit into an obstacle course. Giichi brushed past a large buffalo lining up a shot on one of the pool tables, then dodged a dingo who'd obviously had too much to drink as he fumbled about, crashing into just about everything and earning the ire and yelling of other patrons.

Just when he thought he was safe, a new face stepped into the doorway, silhouetted by a light mounted across the hallway. Giichi felt his blood running cold when he saw who it was. Jet black fur contrasted against a blue and yellow flight suit, a narrow feline tail swishing around out back like an angry cobra. Yellow slit eyes bore down on Giichi, the light's silhouette making them appear to shine brighter. It was Panther Caruso, the Number Three of the Star Wolf gang.

"Hello there Giichi," A pleasant smile crossed the larger cat's face, while his rich, deep voice halted Giichi in his tracks.

"Hi…?" Giichi craned his neck back to look Panther in the face. The sand cat's height only reached up to about Panther's chest, making him feel very small.

Giichi didn't know Panther all that well, or Leon for that matter. After Wolf hired Giichi for the CCSNB job, Giichi pretty much worked only with the lupine, leaving the other two of the Big Three an unknown quantity. Why did Panther want to talk to him, all of a sudden?

"You like G-Zero don't you?" Panther kept the pleasant smile on his face, as he leaned against the door frame.

"Uh…y-y-yeah." Surprised by the response, Giichi had some trouble forming his words. "A-actually we were having a G-Zero tournament over there…just…now." He pointed towards the TV with the gaming system, now occupied by four grunts playing team deathmatch in the game Duty Calls.

Panther smirked at the TV, looking down at Giichi. "You like fast things, basically? I see you playing that G-Zero game a lot."

"You…could say that?" Giichi raised an eyebrow, not sure where this was going.

"Well…how about I show you something fast in real life?"

"What? Like your fighter?"

Panther's grin got even bigger. "Oh no. I've picked up something else. It's not as fast as a space fighter, but I think you'll love seeing it. Want to take a look?"

While Panther seemed like a level-headed guy, some time ago a monkey in the canteen warned Giichi it was best if Leon didn't get to know you. Apparently, the screams Giichi heard at night from the engine room really were screams, and not just weird noises from the machines like Wolf said they were. And Panther was Leon's friend… What sort of person kept company like that?

Giichi didn't know if he wanted to take the bigger cat up on his offer, although curiosity got the best of him in the end. "Well, what is it?"

"That would spoil the surprise." Panther chuckled and shook his head, as if he were a parent who wouldn't tell his kid what he was getting for his birthday. Panther stepped out of the doorway and into the hall, looking back and expecting Giichi to follow. "Just come with me. You'll find out soon enough."

Giichi hated being talked down to like that, although he kept his face neutral. Sighing inwardly, he followed after Panther.

"There's a good cub." Panther smiled, as he walked and turned round to face the hallway, thin tail swishing behind him. "Let's get going."

As soon as Panther couldn't see, Giichi grit his teeth so hard at the 'cub' remark that he thought they might shatter. Sure he looked young enough to be a high schooler and he was tiny compared to most people, but Giichi wanted to be treated like an adult. He was a twenty-seven year old man now, after all.

Still, Giichi kept his thoughts to himself as they walked. Too bad Panther wanted to make more small talk.

"The news said there was a commotion at the CCSNB a few hours ago," Panther said. "A scientist got shot, and fighters chased a stolen shuttle fleeing the base. I bet that was Wolf, and if so he should be back any minute now with the case." He turned around to grin at the smaller cat, speaking with genuine pleasure. "So, since your work here is almost done and you'll be leaving soon, I figured I'd show you this as a goodbye present. You helped me get it, after all."

"I did?" Giichi raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, yes." Panther chuckled. "I'll explain more once I show you."

They exited out of the hallway and into a large docking bay, their footsteps echoing in the large space. The starry night sky of space could be seen off to one side through the open ship portal, a force field keeping the hangar interior pressurized. A motley collection of fighters filled the open space, ranging from looking like they were held together with chewing gum and string to the latest and greatest. Why would pirates waste money on bothering with consistency, after all? Aside from their footsteps, not many other sounds interrupted the silence. Most of the crew was goofing off elsewhere while waiting for Wolf, after all.

Wolf's, Leon's, and Panther's ships, all gleaming in Star Wolf's signature red, white, and black paint, occupied the hangar too. They sat in their own space apart from the other ships, with their own special supply of fuel, parts, and tools. However, Giichi noticed that area of the docking bay also had a large section blocked off by temporary metal partitions. The enclosed area looked almost big enough for another fighter. It was there when he'd arrived on the _Retribution_ many months ago. Giichi had never asked about it before…but…

"Say Panther," Giichi started. "If you don't mind me asking, what's behind those walls over there? The ones near your Black Rose fighter? I've always been curious about it."

"Sorry Giichi," Panther shook his head. "I don't know. It's some special project Wolf has going. I always hear people in there working on something though. Lots of banging, cutting, and whatnot. Speaking of…"

As they approached the other end of the docking bay, those very sounds could be heard from a different area of the hangar. As they passed by the last parked fighter, a group of mechanics came into view, all of them gathered around a suit of burly power armor. Power tools whirred and hammers clanged as they worked to replace damaged metallic plates on the suit. Meanwhile, a large brown bear off to the side called out directions in a peculiar language, looking very muscular under his green mechanic suit. Giichi could not place the language though. He sounded very agitated in any case. A piece of chest armor fell off by accident when one of the mechanics tried to fit it in place.

The bear ran over, calling out "Nein, so was!" as he snapped his large teeth at the tech.

The mechanic, a scrawny meerkat, looked like he was having trouble lifting the armor. However, the bear seemed to be sympathetic, as he ran over to help lift it. "Warte mal! Lass mich dir helfen."

The bear put the chest piece in place, holding it there while the meerkat used his power tools to screw it into place.

"Gut. Gut gut gut." The bear patted him on the back.

"That's Ooveh…" Panther said. "Weird name, but that power armor's no joke. He can hold twin laser miniguns while in that suit. There was a rebellion on Titania we got called in to deal with, and he ripped them all to shreds pretty much singlehandedly."

"Well done for him then…" Giichi wasn't sure if he should be impressed or afraid.

After passing the group, they walked into a hallway on the other side of the docking bay.

"So tell me some more about what it's like to be a computer hacker," Panther said. "Now that I've seen what you can do with it, I'm very interested…"

Giichi looked up after he heard that. Panther sure wasn't interested before. Hell, this was the first time they'd had an extended conversation. The sand cat couldn't help but wonder if Panther had some kind of ulterior motive, so he decided to keep it uninteresting so Panther wouldn't ask any more questions.

"Well, it's not as glamorous as your job. Any job dealing with computers is mostly just about solving problems."

"Like what?"

"Fixing hardware…designing software…planning how to build a database, those kinds of things." That sounded boring enough to Giichi.

"Or figuring out how to break into a Cornerian Defense Force base's computer system." Panther gazed down at Giichi with a poisonous-looking smile.

Feeling awkward, Giichi returned the smile. "Thanks, but it's still all the same thing at heart."

"You're too modest. Seriously, I'd like to know how you did it."

Giichi went silent for a moment. He supposed discussing the topic wouldn't be that harmful. He started to think of a way to explain his hacking methods to where Panther could understand it. As a computer programmer and hacker, he did this frequently with those not as technically inclined as he was.

"Well, breaking into a system isn't that different from being a burglar and trying to break into a house. You just look for the easiest way to get inside. The easiest way is just to get your hands on a key, and it's not uncommon for people to hide a spare key somewhere outside the house."

Panther seemed to like the analogy. "Go on."

"So… Instead of forcing my way in, I try to get a key: a user account and password."

"And how would you do that? It's not like someone on the inside's just going to give you that."

Giichi couldn't help but laugh. "Actually you're wrong. There are lots of ways to trick people into giving up those things."

"Really?" Panther blinked, looking down at him.

Giichi smiled with pride. For once, he felt superior to Panther in this conversation. "There's a word for it. It's called 'social engineering'. You know those Aquasian 914 scam emails you get? Where they promise you millions of credits in return for your bank account number and pilot's license number and whatever else?"

"Yes, but who'd be stupid enough to fall for that?"

"People _do_ fall for it. Otherwise those emails would stop. There's a sucker born every minute, as they say. Those are called 'phishing emails'. You can send an email like that to a user and pretend to be tech support, and then make up a problem so that they let you remote control their machine. Or you can make a fake login page that looks like a real one. They enter their username and password. It doesn't let them into the system of course, but now their keystrokes are recorded and you've got their username and password. I used all of these methods to get the accounts with the access I needed."

"It must've been hard work, since it took you months to get that much control over the security system."

"Yes, but it's much easier than just trying to crack the system. I started out by tricking some file clerk into giving me her username and password. Then I used that username to trick her supervisor into giving me his password, then the building's supervisor, and so on and so forth until I managed to get the head admin's password. And once you've got that, you have the keys to the kingdom. You can do whatever you want and then use the head admin's account to erase traces of you ever being there. That's exactly what I did to help Wolf."

"Really?" Panther smiled with admiration. "It almost sounds fun when you put it that way. Anyway, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere near that case without your help. I'm impressed with what you did, seriously. I'll ask Wolf to give you a bigger cut of the money."

The sand cat's eyes widened at that last bit. "Gosh. Thanks." He sure hadn't expected to hear something like that from Panther.

Back when Wolf first hired Giichi, he obviously hated having to call in outside help for such a big job. Giichi wasn't a part of his inner circle after all, after all. From what Giichi observed working at Star Wolf, the Big Three liked to keep the planning of the big jobs to themselves. However, Wolf needed a hacker, so there he was. But whenever Giichi tried to tell him about the technical stuff, the lupine either nodded off or came up with some excuse to stop the meeting. After a while, Wolf just left Giichi alone to do his thing, until Giichi mentioned he was done penetrating the network.

So why this sudden interest from Panther now that things were winding down? Panther had little to nothing to do with this job. Giichi felt a little flattered by the attention but wondered if there was more meaning behind it than simple admiration.

Panther stopped in front of a heavy steel doorway, a panel next to the door announcing it as a supply warehouse. "We're here."

Smiling, Panther punched a code into a nearby keypad. The double doors whooshed aside, revealing inky blackness. After stepping inside, Panther flipped several light switches on the wall next to the door. Shelves with miscellaneous boxes and containers came into view as the lights turned on. Much to Giichi's worry, Panther stopped to close the entrance door and lock it with bars.

However, Panther just gestured for Giichi to follow him. The two felines walked past the racks to the back of the room, towards stacks of large shipping containers.

Panther stopped at a white container with a keypad on it, and began pressing more buttons. "All right, here it is!"

The sides of the container fell away, clattering on the floor. Giichi's earlier fears about Panther melted away, as he gazed at the most beautiful thing in the galaxy.

"No way…" Giichi was breathless.

Before him sat an elegantly curved car, looking more like a piece of art rather than an automobile. He'd seen this car in magazines before, but to meet it in person was quite another thing.

The vehicle looked like a low slung, sculpted wedge of metal and glass with wheels attached. The cockpit sat far forward to allow space for the big engine in the back. Vents built into the sides and above the passenger cabin piped air into the engine compartment to keep it cool. The rear racing spoiler possessed lots of special characteristics too. It only popped up at speeds where the downforce was needed. Plus when you braked at high velocity, it leaned downwards to act as an air brake, just like on G-Zero racers. All in all, Giichi considered himself blessed by the gods to be here today.

"This is an Aquila Hyoodin! If I remember right, it's named after the Cerinian god of wind, and it produces fifteen hundred kilowatts…" Shaking his head in disbelief, he looked over at a smug-looking Panther. "Didn't Mr. Sergei Aquila say they were only going to make twenty of them? For like two point five million credits each?"

Panther burst out into a big laugh. "I thought you'd know about this car. I could tell you have a taste for fast things, so I thought you'd like seeing it."

"Oh yes, definitely! Thank you!" Giichi meant those words from the bottom of his heart, despite his earlier thoughts. He smiled wholeheartedly at Panther, before looking back at the car. The sand cat walked over slowly with reverence. He glanced inside the car, gazing at the leather interior done in a brilliant shade of wine red. It reminded Giichi of red velvet cake, one of his favorite desserts. White on the outside, red on the inside. Whispering, he made an aside glance back to Panther. "Can…can I sit in it?"

Panther let out another long laugh, but at the same time he shook his head.

"Now don't get ahead of yourself. Even I haven't gotten to sit in it yet. I'm going to do that now, in fact." Panther pulled out a small key chain and pressed a button. The car gave a pleasant chirp, as the scissor doors rose vertically up into the air. Panther jumped into the driver's seat, taking a deep breath. The wine red leather seats squeaked as he slid inside, while the dashboard's silver gleamed under the warehouse's fluorescent lights.

Giichi moved to the passenger door to get a better look. While the car looked gorgeous and Giichi couldn't stop admiring it, a nagging question tugged at the back of his mind. "Do Leon and Wolf know about this yet?"

Panther's smile immediately vanished. "Well…no." He didn't say anything for a moment, looking away in embarrassment. Sighing, he back at Giichi. "Don't tell them, please. They'd go crazy if they found out I was spending our reward money already."

"Deal…" A devilish grin crossed Giichi's face, with the tips of his twin incisors exposed. "If you let me sit in it."

Panther looked at Giichi with a blank look, before a small smile exposed his own sharp teeth. "I knew you had a little backbone in you somewhere. Come on, sit."

Giichi jumped right in, with the touch of the luxurious leather feeling intoxicating against his fur. The two cats just sat there for several minutes, gazing at the car and admiring it in silent reverence.

Giichi was the first to break the silence. "So… If you knew Leon and Wolf would get mad, why'd you buy it now? Why didn't you wait until the job was done?"

Panther sighed. "I wanted to wait, but like you said there are only twenty Hyoodins. I knew they'd all sell out to billionaires in the first hour they went on sale. So I had to get it fast, even if we didn't have the money yet. Speaking of which… I'm getting a little anxious now. You'd think Wolf would be back by now."

Giichi looked at Panther with narrowed eyes, before he resumed looking back out through the front windshield. The silence resumed for a few more minutes.

"Well, I'm sorry Giichi," Panther stepped out of the car. "But I'm anxious about Wolf getting back. I'm going to go to the bridge and see if they know anything. You'll have to get out of the car now."

Giichi looked like a kid on Christmas who just had all his presents taken away after opening them. Seeing this car in person was like getting to meet your favorite super model. He would never, ever get to see this car in person again once his work with Star Wolf was done. Reluctantly though he stepped out of the car, as Panther tapped the buttons on the cargo container. The container's sides slid back into place, hiding the car from view once more.

"Don't look so glum Giichi," Panther gave him a reassuring slap on the shoulder. "I'll tell you what. Since you liked the Hyoodin so much, I'll even let you drive it a little bit once we've got our reward money."

Giichi's jaw dropped. Forget meeting your favorite super model. That would be like getting to bang her too. He just stood there gawking back at the closed up container and then back at Panther.

Panther let out that customary soft chuckle of his. "I'll take it from your response that's cheered you up then."

"Yeah…definitely. It's been my lifelong dream to drive a car like this. Thanks Panther."

 _Shoot, I wouldn't say this out loud, but I think that'd be a better payment than whatever bonus Panther's throwing in as well._

"Just remember…" Panther wagged his finger. "Don't tell anyone about this car until after we get the reward money, ok?"

"Yeah, definitely." Giichi offered a salute, putting on a dumb smile. "Cub Scout's honor!"

"Good then." He waved for Giichi follow him. Giichi took one last look at the container, before Panther opened up the entrance door and they stepped back into the hall.

"All right Giichi." Panther closed the door, smiling at the sand cat. "Thanks for keeping this a secret. I just couldn't stand it. I had to share with someone. Hopefully Wolf will be back soon and we won't have to worry about anything."

"Yeah…me too," Giichi smiled. "Wouldn't want there to be any trouble."

"I agree. Well…I better get to the bridge. See you later."

"Okay, thanks again."

The two cats parted ways, going in opposite directions down the hall.

* * *

Panther smiled, as he walked towards the _Retribution's_ bridge. It felt nice being able to have a friendly conversation once in a while. Everyone in Star Wolf fell into two groups: the Big Three…and everyone else. Calling Wolf and Leon 'friends' was a bit of a stretch. The three of them were more like business partners, and spent almost all of their time together just talking about the next big score. Panther liked money as much as the next guy, but it got tiring to only talk business with Wolf and Leon sometimes. Meanwhile, everyone else in Star Wolf wouldn't talk to him casually. He felt it was due to having Leon as a close associate.

Giichi seemed to be an exception. Some time ago, he noticed the sand cat had posters of fast cars in his room, but no girls. You'd think he preferred making love to machines instead of women. But at least that gave them common ground when it came to an interest in first class cars. The idea of showing him the Hyoodin went off perfectly. Maybe he'd be able to make a new friend even.

Panther reached the bridge's door and swiped his access card. The door slid aside, offering a view of Fortuna's moon Genma through the huge frontal viewing port. Despite living in space much of his life, Panther never got tired of seeing the view here. Something new always filled this window as the _Retribution_ traveled the galaxy.

After finishing with the view, Panther turned to look at the crew in the room. They all stood up and saluted him as he entered, since he held authority while Wolf was gone. Panther felt a little embarrassed by the show of respect, and waved for them to sit down. The crew saluting him didn't make for an impressive sight anyway. Unlike a standard military, Star Wolf didn't have an official uniform. Most of the crew in here just wore their best jumpsuits, and even those often had lots of stains and tears. It felt like being on a cargo vessel.

He approached the captain's chair, and the massive gray rhinoceros sitting there. Jamal was his name. Unlike everyone else, Jamal wore a white captain's jacket over his jumpsuit, along with a matching military cap. However, both bits of attire looked as old as Panther himself. Stains and poorly-repaired cuts covered the fabric. Jamal must have been thinner when he first got the uniform too, because his girth prevented the coat from being buttoned up.

The coat bore the old flag, colors, and symbols of a long gone nation planet from decades ago, back when Jamal commanded a true military ship. Despite his glory days being long behind him, everyone on the ship (including Wolf) respected Jamal's military experience when it came to commanding a ship. This allowed the Big Three to focus more on planning big heists while Jamal handled the day-to-day running of the ship.

Jamal quickly stood up out of the captain's chair as Panther approached, moving surprisingly fast for his size. "Here Panther sir, if you like."

"That's all right, Jamal." Again, Panther felt a little embarrassed by all this. "I just wanted to know if you had any updates on Wolf."

"I'm afraid not. If he went to the asteroid field and hit the warp portal like we planned, we should be seeing him soon."

"Captain, sir!" a crocodile called out, from his post at the radar station.

Panther and Jamal turned their heads. Jamal leaned over his arm rest, making it creak. "What is it, son?"

"I'm picking up an energy surge from where the warp portal lets out." The crocodile rolled aside in his chair to let the others see. On the computer monitor, a purple sphere representing Fortuna sat off to the left. On the right, a blue dot grew in size, shifting to green, then yellow, and then red as the mass increased. It flashed white for a second before disappearing.

The crocodile checked a radar screen next to the energy-detecting screen. The transponder flagged the vessel as a Cornerian troop shuttle. "That must be Wolf. That shuttle's got the same ID number as the one we stole for this job. The energy surge is gone, so he's through the portal now."

Panther jogged over to the radar station, eager for news. "Is he on his way back to the _Retribution_?"

"I think…I think he's in trouble. See that thing there?" The crocodile pointed as a radar dot appeared behind the shuttle. "Something broke off the shuttle. And he's headed down towards Fortuna, not here."

Panther felt his heart racing. While he felt concerned about Wolf of course, he also worried about what he'd do with the Hyoodin if the case got destroyed with the shuttle. He spun around to face a porcupine manning the communication post. "Send a rescue team now!"

"Already on it," he said, typing commands into his machine. However, the porcupine stopped when a buzzer alerted him to something. Pausing, he timidly turned around. "Uh…Panther…?"

Panther was already halfway across the bridge, sprinting for the exit. "Not now!"

"But it's Sable…"

Panther stopped in his tracks, forgetting to breathe for a moment. Sable was calling them? This was the first time they'd communicated in a month or two. What did she want? Wolf did all the talking with her. Panther wondered if he should take the call. But then again this was the lady paying them one hundred million credits to steal that case, so Panther figured she should not be kept waiting.

"Okay…patch it in to the main screen. I'll answer it." Panther took a deep breath while he waited for the communication tech to put her up on the main screen. He didn't know what Sable looked like, since again Wolf took all of their incoming calls from her. What would she be like? Wolf always looked a little terrified after every call with her. What kind of woman could shake up even _him_?

Sable's image buzzed into focus, revealing the face of another black panther, dressed in a cream-colored dress with a golden necklace and bangles. Panther sure didn't expect that. However, her coat looked to be a lighter shade compared to his. He could still see leopard spots against the dark fur, unlike his own solid black coat. Regardless seeing her felt bizarre, almost as though he was looking at a long-lost sibling.

She looked equally surprised at the sight of Panther. "I'm sorry." She looked embarrassed. "Who are you?"

"Panther Caruso…" He paused, confused about her demeanor. She didn't seem that scary…so far anyway. "I'm third in command of Star Wolf, behind Wolf and Leon."

"I am Sable. Is Wolf there? I need to speak with him." She kept a neutral, businesslike tone, gently leaning on the desk in front of her.

"I'm afraid he's not back yet."

The black leopard leaned back in her chair, looking deep in thought. However, she kept a blank face, not revealing any feelings. "The attack on Corneria's main base is all over the news. I just wanted to know if that was your operation. Did you get the case? Is Wolf bringing it back with him?" The neutral tone evaporated somewhat as Sable asked the questions, leaning in closer and getting more anxious as she talked.

"Wolf went to that base some time ago. Most likely that was him," Panther answered. "But I can't say for sure if he's got the case."

"You can't say for sure? Why not?" Her gaze bored into Panther, tracking his every move.

Panther wondered if this is what it felt like when he himself stared down someone with his own yellow eyes. Nonetheless, he tried his best to report the facts without letting his own anxiousness show. "We've been on radio silence for some time. But his shuttle did make it back to Fortuna just now and—"

"So he's made it back with the case?" Sable interrupted. By this point she'd leaned back and picked up a pen off her desk. She squeezed it in her hand, probably to relieve stress.

Panther gulped. "N-not exactly…"

"And what do you mean by that?" Despite squeezing the pen, Sable still kept her voice neutral and even.

"Uh…" Panther steeled himself. "The shuttle…it's gone down on Fortuna."

"What?!" The businesslike demeanor vanished. The pen clattered on the floor as she leaned on the desk towards the camera, her face almost filling up the entire screen. You'd think Panther just announced he'd killed her best friend.

"We don't know what happened yet. We're sending a rescue team down now to get Wolf."

She remained frozen in place, leaning against the desk. Her eyes wandered, as it appeared she was busy trying to process the news in her head and how to respond. After a moment, she picked the pen back up off of the floor. "Okay…" Sable said evenly. "So you don't have the case. When you find Wolf, I want him to call me back. And let me know when you get that case. All right? It's urgent you get us that case ASAP."

She put some commands into an unseen keyboard below the desk, terminating the connection without bothering to say goodbye or any other pleasantries.

The conversation left Panther with confusion rather than terror. Aside from being a little pushy with her commands, she didn't seem to be that bad to talk to. Perhaps she'd been a bit dry and businesslike but there was nothing wrong with that. In fact she'd even been a little polite at first. Nonetheless, one hundred million credits was at stake, and he didn't want to disappoint her.

"So…Panther…rescue team?" The communications officer asked.

The words shook panther out of his thoughts. After a moment, he nodded towards the porcupine. "Yeah… Do it. I'll go with them. Let's get Wolf, and our money."

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter's gone through a significant amount of edits compared to my original draft. In the old draft, it was basically Giichi playing G-Zero GX in his room, then Panther shows him the car, and that was it. However, I felt like the_ Retribution _deserved some more character development of its own, so I added some scenes to help you get a feel for all of it. The rec room scene, hangar scene, and bridge scene are all brand new._

 _Also, the Aquila Hyoodin is actually inspired from a real life car. If you're interested in seeing it, google "Pagani Huayra". It's named after the ancient Peruvian god of wind. However, on the car show Top Gear, Richard Hammond joked that you pronounce its name like you're saying "How are ya?" Now, how do you think you pronounce "Hyoodin"? XD_

 _By the way...damn me and my need to finish this chapter tonight. It's 11:40 pm and I need to wake up in six hours..._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Fox yawned as he walked down the corridors of the Great Fox II, with a cup of coffee in hand, red scarf around the neck, and silver jacket over the shoulders. He needed it all to help ward off the cold. Fox kept the ship's temperature down while everyone slept to save money. He'd jumped back in bed after ordering R.O.B. to take them to Corneria, but he just couldn't go back to sleep while worrying about Slippy's father. Since it was close to his normal wake up time anyway, he decided to just go to the bridge and start the day. Fox took a sip on his cup of coffee as he approached it.

The bridge's door whooshed open. Ahead, Fox spotted R.O.B. in his usual spot near the front viewing port, plugged into the navigational system. The vulpine sighed, watching the robot guiding the Great Fox II along its way. He found it depressing to walk in here each morning with just R.O.B. for company. While faithful servants, robots just didn't make adequate substitutes for a full crew of flesh-and-blood friends. He'd never quite gotten used to being on this ship just with Slippy around.

A sneeze interrupted his train of thought. Fox's ear rotated towards the sound, picking it up coming from the communications station. Since another control station blocked the view, Fox walked past his commander's chair and spotted Slippy sitting there by the radio. In addition to wearing a thick coat, Slippy kept a large blanket draped over his shoulders and a cooling thermos of coffee sitting nearby. Slippy glanced back at Fox, looking bleary-eyed, and turned back to the radio.

"How long you been here?" Fox asked.

"Ever since R.O.B. woke me up…" Slippy sighed, pulling the blanket tighter round himself. "Couldn't sleep. Couldn't stop thinking about Dad."

"I couldn't sleep either, actually. I'm real worried about your dad too."

"That's why I came in here…" the toad paused to sip from the thermos. "I want to know right away if Peppy's got any news."

"Has Peppy called?"

"Not much." Slippy shook his head. "He called about three hours ago. Dad's stable, but he's not awake yet."

"Well…that's good isn't it?" Fox smiled, placing a hand on Slippy's shoulder. "Least you know he's going to be OK."

"I know…but…" Slippy sniffled, turning teary eyed towards the vulpine. "I don't understand. Why would someone shoot my dad? Why?" The toad grabbed the lapels of Fox's jacket. "Why Fox? Peppy said there were even some bombs that went off!"

Fox raised his eyebrows. "Bombs? Terrorists?"

"P-Peppy doesn't know yet." Slippy rubbed tears away from his eyes. "I just…I really want to know. I want to know why they shot my dad too."

The vulpine found himself at a loss for words. This reminded him of how his mother Vixy died so many years ago at Sapphire City. Andross's lab used to be there, when he still worked for the Cornerian government. He was building some sort of prototype bomb in his lab, according to investigators. But one day, Andross accidentally triggered a chain reaction that would detonate it. Andross knew it was going to go off, but instead of warning people he just flew away from the city to save his own skin, the selfish bastard. Vixy happened to be in town that day on a shopping trip, and she was completely vaporized by the blast, along with the entire rest of the town. Absolutely nothing remained of Sapphire City now, except for a crater.

The universe could be so cruel sometimes, Fox reflected, as he looked out the window. To hurt your loved ones or just kill them outright, out of the blue like that. Made you feel like you were just the universe's chew toy.

Fox shook his head. "I want to know too, Slippy. But I think we'll just have to wait until we get there." He took a closer look through the viewport, spotting a curious object. The sapphire sphere of Corneria could be seen on the forward viewport now, looking like a shining gem in space. Smiling, Fox pointed at it. "Look, it's only a little bit farther now."

Fox spared a glance at Slippy, but the toad still looked anxious, as he wrung part of the blanket in his hands. No, wait. Not anxiousness. A hint of anger. Rage. The toad wrung that blanket like he was strangling somebody's neck, eyes narrowed at the approaching planet.

Fox stepped in closer, looking down at him. "Slippy, are you all right?"

The toad released the blanket, glancing over at Fox with a confused look, blinking rapidly. "Uh…yeah," he stammered.

Fox doubted that. However, he put it out of his mind for now, as he looked through the front viewport. Corneria grew larger at a rapid pace. Soon, they entered the atmosphere and the Corneria City Space Navy Base came into view far below, the sunrise bathing everything in orange. Even from here, Fox saw the devastation wreaked by the terrorists, or whoever did this. Smoke clouds drifted up from the rubble of destroyed buildings. The control tower looked like a burnt out matchstick, the concrete and metal at the top scorched black by a tremendous explosion. Emergency vehicles and personnel scurried about, covering much of the tarmac.

Who did all of this? Rogue remnants of Andross's army? Star Fox routed most of what was left of that crew at Fortuna two years ago. But Corneria didn't have the man power to hold the entire Lylat System, especially after the Aparoid invasion wiped out most of their fleet not long after the Fortuna incident. Fox would not be surprised if pockets of Androssian resistance still held out here and there. But slipping into a Cornerian base, shooting people, and setting off bombs? If it was them, they sure were getting bold now. Fox supposed he would get actual answers from Peppy though, so he decided to not dwell on it too much. He took his seat in the commander's chair and buckled in for the landing. Within minutes, R.O.B. piloted the Great Fox II to hover just above the concrete.

But even before the ship fully set down, Slippy jumped out of his chair and rushed towards the door.

Fox raised up a hand. "Hey Slippy—"

But he went out the door like a shot. Fox rushed after Slippy, surprised at how fast the toad moved. In another time, the vulpine thought this would have been funny, considering he usually walked in front whenever his team walked anywhere. Even before Fox could catch up, Slippy already opened an exit door. Orange sunlight poured into the ship through the hatchway. Slippy ducked under the door, not waiting for it to open all the way.

Fox followed after him onto the exit ramp, the blazing orange sunlight filling his vision as he stepped out into the open air. He raised up a hand to shield his eyes. He spotted the silhouette of a jeep at the bottom of the ramp, with someone short and a little portly standing next to it. Tall ears sprung out of the stranger's head. More details began to come into focus, including glasses and an impressive moustache.

"Peppy?" Slippy called out. "Is that you?"

Fox took a closer look. Sure enough, it was him. Peppy allowed himself a small smile. He wore a scarlet uniform with gold embroidery. It shone in the morning light, making Peppy himself appear to glow. Fox sure hadn't expected clothes like that. Did that mean…?

"You're a general now?" Fox caught up to Slippy at last, both of them stopping next to Peppy.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Slippy looked Peppy up and down, eyes wide in amazement.

"Well…" Peppy shrugged, the smile fading away. "I only just got promoted a couple days ago. I wanted it to be a surprise the next time we met, but then all of…this…happened." He cast a sorrowful look at the destroyed control tower and the other clouds of smoke in the distance. Soldiers picked through the debris, calling out and looking for survivors.

"Shame you couldn't have told us under better circumstances." Fox sighed, as he observed the destruction.

"Slippy," Peppy turned back to the toad, smiling. "Your father woke up a couple hours ago. He'll need some crutches for a while, but he should make a full recovery. We'll go see him now."

The relief felt palpable, not only to Slippy but even Fox himself. Slippy seemed to physically straighten up at the news, like someone took a big weight off of his shoulders. The toad rubbed his teary eyes, letting out a small smile. "Oh, that's great. Thank you…thank you so much Peppy!" Slippy wrapped his webbed hands around Peppy.

While surprised by the maneuver, Peppy just laughed and rubbed the top of Slippy's head. "Hey…just doing my job here. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you sooner. We had a lot of questions for Beltino after he woke up."

"What do you mean by that?" Slippy looked up, pulling away from Peppy.

"Beltino wasn't just an unlucky bystander." Peppy paused to adjust his glasses, narrowing his eyes. "It was Wolf O'Donnell, and he was after Beltino specifically."

Fox's jaw dropped. He didn't see that coming. "Wolf snuck in here?!"

Slippy looked just as surprised. "What did he want my dad for? Why'd he shoot him?"

"It's a long story." Peppy turned towards the jeep, waving for Fox and Slippy to follow. "But I suppose I can tell you it while we're on the way."

The three of them piled in, with Peppy taking the driver's seat, Slippy riding shotgun, and Fox getting in back. Before long they went on their way, Peppy taking it slow as he maneuvered through the personnel and vehicles going every which way. In spite of the situation, Fox couldn't help but point something out.

"So you're a general now, but they don't give you a driver?" Fox grinned, as he leaned on the jeep's roll bar.

"Oh, I just wanted the exercise," Peppy smiled, pushing on the brake and changing gears to go round a ninety degree turn. "Seriously though, I don't mind driving myself. And besides, it frees up another pair of hands to help with the cleanup."

"Why did Wolf shoot my dad?" Slippy sounded angry enough to break something, as he held onto his hand rest as they cleared the sharp turn, clenching it hard enough for the veins to be visible under the slimy skin.

Peppy gave Slippy a funny look at the tone, but started talking anyway. "Wolf needed Beltino's security access to the vault network beneath the base. There was one particular case Wolf wanted to steal. Beltino tried to escape, but Wolf shot him before he could get away."

"Wolf really did that?" Slippy's eyes widened. "After everything he did to help us fight the Aparoids? I thought he was a good guy now…"

"I hoped the same too, Slippy." A sad look crossed Fox's face. He felt more disappointed than angry. Sure, expecting Wolf to just quit being a criminal was unrealistic, but Fox realized he'd held onto that hope regardless. He respected the lupine for making sacrifices during the Aparoid Invasion to save Lylat. How sad that his rival went back to his old ways. Turning to Peppy, Fox asked, "So how did Wolf get in here? Heck, how'd he get _out_?"

Peppy looked as though he didn't want to talk about that. Fox could see the hare shrinking down in his seat. "Uh…well…"

Recognizing the embarrassment, Fox smiled and pat him on the shoulder. "Peppy, it's okay. You just got this job, and no one saw this coming. How could you know this would happen?"

Peppy spared Fox a glance in the rearview mirror. "Well…okay. I guess I can fill you in." He straightened up in the driver's seat. "Wolf had some outside help for his heist. Seems he hired a computer hacker to help him break in. We have an extensive surveillance network watching our vaults. There are cameras, guards, biometric scanners…you name it we've got it. But that hacker disabled most of that, and replaced our camera feeds with pre-recorded, looping footage of empty hallways and rooms. We had no idea we were blind. Wolf shot the guards watching the vault door and walked right on in."

"How did my dad get away?" Slippy asked. "You said Wolf shot him before he could escape."

"Aaaaah…" Peppy smiled. "Beltino…he's smart, but I never knew he could think on his feet so fast. He tricked Wolf into letting him use one of the terminals down in the vaults. Beltino entered his password wrong three times on purpose. When you do that, your account gets locked and an alert email gets sent to our base's IT techs. They'll see the account and where you tried to log in at.

"So think about this from IT's perspective: they get an email about someone trying to log into a computer in a highly secret, classified area. It's in the middle of the night, long after most people have gone home. And the account is Beltino's, one of our highest profile users. That's going to raise some eyebrows. So the techs called the guards at the vault entrance to see what was going on. When the dead guards at the vault entrance couldn't answer, the tech team sounded the alarm."

"Those dead soldiers…" Slippy trailed off, shaking his head. "But way to go Dad. If he hadn't done that…"

"I know. Beltino would have died, the bombs would have gone off, and we wouldn't have figured out what happened until long after it was all over."

Something about this story didn't add up to Fox though. "Why didn't Wolf kill Beltino?"

"Oh, you won't believe this. I almost can't believe what I'm about to say, but Wolf himself saved Beltino from dying."

"What the heck?!" Fox's jaw dropped.

Peppy told them about how Wolf and his cronies disguised themselves as soldiers, used the injured Beltino to walk right past all the soldiers investigating the alarm, gave him over to the medic, and then slipped away. Then Peppy told them about Bill chasing Wolf into the Meteo asteroid field, only for Wolf to escape through one of the warp portals in the area.

To Fox, it all sounded like such an amazing tale. If what Wolf did was the plot of a spy movie or something, Fox probably would have loved watching it. Alas, this was real life. Also, Fox found himself most curious about one conspicuously-missing detail. "So…if you don't mind me asking, what was in the case?"

"We don't know." Peppy didn't elaborate any further, sounding somewhat embarrassed by mentioning it.

Fox cocked his head, looking dumbfounded at the statement. "You don't know? But that's your case, and your vaults!" Fox knew the Cornerian government could be inept at times with how often they needed Star Fox's help (not that he was complaining too much), but _this_ took the cake.

Peppy sighed. "Well…the vaults have a system for tracking cases as they move from one vault to the next, but the hacker's meddling disabled that."

Fox stroked his chin, holding onto the overhead roll bar with his other hand. "So do you have a backup plan for how to find out what he stole?"

"Yes. A very low tech one…" The hare took a deep breath. "We get a list of what was in the vault. Then we physically note every case one by one until we find a case number that's missing…"

That sure didn't sound fun to Fox. "So how many cases are in the vault?"

"Eight hundred, twenty three thousand, and two..." Peppy sounded tired just from saying the words. "It's going to take us at least a couple days to find out what went missing, even with a hundred-plus people working round the clock on it."

"Daaaaaamn…" Fox drawled, his big mouth accenting it. "Glad I'm not doing that."

"Well…" Peppy chuckled. "You can still help out, if you want."

Fox laughed it off. "No thanks. Needle in a haystack there, Peppy."

"Oh no," Peppy grinned, shaking his head before he looked Fox in the eye in the rearview mirror's reflection. "I meant something else. We could help each other here. How would you like to get paid to bring that case back, Fox?"

The talk of money got Fox's attention, drawing his pointed ears erect and hanging onto Peppy's every word. "Well, color me interested then." While he wasn't sure how he'd fight Star Wolf with just Slippy at his side, he decided he'd listen to the details and see if something could be worked out.

Peppy nodded in satisfaction. "All right. We can talk about it after Slippy sees his dad."

Fox held on to the roll bar as the jeep turned another corner, the base's hospital coming into view. If it didn't have the red cross and "HOSPITAL" on the front you'd probably think it was an ordinary white office building. However, this place was important to Fox. Back when his father James worked for the Cornerian military, he used this hospital for all of his medical needs since it was free to soldiers and their family. So, when his mom went into labor twenty seven years ago, this was where they went. Thus, this hospital became Fox's birthplace.

They pulled up at the front door. After a quick elevator ride and a stroll down the hallway, they found themselves at the door to Beltino's room. Slippy went in first, with Fox following behind. The vulpine braced himself for what he was about to see, after what Peppy had described about the injuries.

But Beltino looked much better than expected. The elder toad sat upright in his bed, a mound of pillows behind him. Aside from the bandages covering the blaster wounds and the hit on his head, Beltino looked pretty good. He watched TV on the overhead monitor, but turned to look as Peppy, Fox, and Slippy walked in.

Beltino beamed a huge smile as the three of them entered. "Well, come on in boys! Don't be shy!" He waved his uninjured arm for them to come over.

"Dad, you're okay!" Slippy rushed over and hugged his father.

"Ow!" Beltino clenched his jaw. Slippy released him. In his excitement, Slippy aggravated his dad's wounds. In spite of the pain and clutching at the bandages, Beltino still managed a smile. "My my son…your grip's getting stronger all the time."

"I'm just…really happy you're okay," Slippy bawled, shedding a tear.

"How are you doing on the Star Fox team?" Beltino beamed and put an arm around Slippy's shoulder. "Do you like your new mothership?"

"Well, it's not as good as the old one." Slippy shot a disapproving glance at Fox. The vulpine looked away as his ears drew backwards. "But we're making do with what we've got."

"Hope things get better for you soon. So son, you want to hear about the projects and inventions I've been working on lately?"

"Sure!"

They talked on and on about various things. What the Star Fox team was up to these days, how things were going with the rest of the Toad family, and so forth. Fox couldn't help but feel a little jealous about Slippy still having a living father, but he also felt ashamed at himself for having those kinds of thoughts. He decided to leave them to their conversation, and sat down on a nearby couch along with Peppy.

"It's hard to believe how happy they are, considering what brought us here," Fox whispered, aside to Peppy.

"I know Fox." Peppy smiled.

The Toads talked for another half an hour. Fox figured Slippy deserved all the time he wanted, so he occupied himself by watching the TV.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Fox's ears rotated towards the door. He thought he heard something out in the hall. He couldn't place the sound exactly, but it didn't sound normal. Fox turned his head towards the door. Was it his imagination, or did the noise sound like shouting? Whatever it was, the noise kept getting louder as it approached the room. Even Beltino and Slippy, absorbed in their conversation, turned to look. And now Fox thought he recognized one of the voices.

"Goddamn it! I'm a friend of Slippy! Let me through!" the voice called out.

"No! I told you! You can't come in here! You don't have authorization!"

"Screw your authorization! Just let Fox or Slippy know I'm here and—"

"Falco?" Fox poked his head out into the hallway.

Sure enough, he saw the blue avian standing there in a crimson red flight suit, attempting to get a mutt soldier to leave him alone, And yet the soldier continued to dog after him, pun intended.

When Falco spotted Fox, the avian just laughed and shook his head. "Can you believe these guys? They all know who I am, but they kept saying on the radio I had to turn back." He gestured to the soldier, before changing his tone to that of a mocking imitation. "'Oh no you can't land! Only the Great Fox II has authorization to land! Only the Great Fox II!' Crazy!"

"You're lucky you didn't get shot down, you SOB!" the mutt kept jumping in front of Falco, trying to bar his progress by holding his laser rifle like a barrier. "You may be a war hero but there's rules and—"

Peppy soon joined them out in the hall, looking a little amused at the incident himself. "Soldier, it's okay. You heard it straight from me. It's okay that Falco's here."

The soldier looked back, spotting Peppy in the doorway with his grand general's outfit. The grunt's demeanor changed on the spot. Spinning around to face Peppy, he shouldered his rifle on his strap and saluted. "Yes General Peppy. Sorry for the mess." Spinning on his heel, he marched back down the hallway, out of sight.

Falco dusted himself off, muttering under his breath. Once he'd finished that, he turned back to Fox and Peppy, beaming a huge smile. "Hey Foxie! Long time no see!" The avian threw out a hand, which Fox shook with a smile.

The bird then turned his attention to the hare. "And Peppy…wow! Never expected to see you wearing that! Looks like you're doing well for yourself!" Peppy smiled, accepting Falco's second handshake.

"Falco?" Slippy stepped into the hall, wide eyed. "You came here too?"

"Of course, Slippy!" Falco chuckled, as if it shouldn't have been a surprised. "Your dad got shot for crying out loud. And I heard the Great Fox II was on the way here, so I thought I'd come along and see how you're all doing."

"It's just that…well…" Slippy looked down at the floor, cupping his hands.

"I called you names?" Falco stepped over, pulling Slippy's chin up so they faced each other. "Made fun of you? Look…in the end, we're still friends. We help each other when we're down, right?"

"I…I guess so…" Slippy sniffled.

"How is your dad doing?" Falco took a step back, giving Slippy some space.

"He'll be fine." Slippy cast a glance back at the door to his father's room, faintly smiling. "So I'm feeling a lot better now. You want to come visit him?"

"Of course." Falco put a hand on Slippy's shoulder, leading him back to Beltino's room. "Why else would I come all this way?"

Fox moved to follow Falco and Slippy back in, but Peppy put a hand on Fox's shoulder. He turned around, giving Peppy a curious look.

"We'll catch up with you in a minute," Peppy called out to Falco and Slippy.

"Okay," Falco waved back, as the bird and toad disappeared into Beltino's room.

Meanwhile, the hare looked at Fox and then nodded towards an open doorway nearby, leading into an empty patient's room. Raising an eyebrow, Fox followed him in. After he walked in, Peppy closed the door and locked it.

"I'd like to talk privately about your mission. Getting back the case, you know."

Ah, maybe that explained the need for privacy, Fox thought. "Okay, go ahead."

Peppy took a seat on the side of an empty bed. "You're sure you want to go after it?"

While he really needed the money, Fox had mixed feelings about it. "I'd like to, but I'm sure you know we're short-staffed right now." He took a seat on a small padded couch, across from Peppy. "Slippy and me, alone against the Star Wolf squadron and whatever else Wolf's got? I don't like those odds." Fox wouldn't admit it, but he'd rather take Star Wolf alone than bring only Slippy along. At least then he could focus one hundred percent on the dogfighting instead of protecting Slippy.

"I know, and that's partially my fault too." Peppy sighed, folded his arms. "But I don't mind loaning you some of my pilots to help out." He glanced at the door. Falco spoke so loud the voice could be heard even from here. "Actually, if you can convince Falco to come with you, that'd be even better. Not many of my pilots could match his skill."

"Falco?" Fox looked at the door. That birdbrain bragged a lot, but he could sure back it up. Reliability was another matter though... "It'd be great with him at my back, but you know him. He's a free spirit and pretty much does whatever he wants. I'm just afraid he might bail on us in the middle of the mission."

"Falco did come all the way out here, for Slippy of all people." Peppy paused to listen to Falco's voice, then chuckled. "Also, once he knows about what Wolf did, I bet he'll be begging you for a chance to get back at Star Wolf."

Fox thought about that for a moment, and then realized Peppy might be onto something. "Hmm…maybe you're right. Before he left, Falco always complained about how bored he was."

"See? I bet he left you because he wasn't having any fun. I bet he'd love to get mixed up in a job like this."

Peppy had a good point. Fighting Star Wolf? Avenging a friend's father? What more excitement and motivation did one need? Fox smiled. "Yeah…sounds like something he'd love."

"Exactly."

Fox shrugged. "Well, I'll see what I can do. But none of this will matter if you don't know where Wolf is. I think you mentioned that Bill chased him into the Meteo asteroid field, but he got away through a warp portal?"

Peppy nodded. "He did. But Bill identified that warp portal. It goes to Fortuna."

"Do you know if Wolf's still around Fortuna?" Fox leaned forward.

"Afraid not." Peppy shook his head. "The Cornerian Navy doesn't have much of a presence over there right now. With how much we lost in the Aparoid war, we've had to pull back to defending only our core territories. Fortuna was a low priority planet, since it's mostly just small settlements here and there in the jungle. I hate to say it, but Wolf sure did pick a good place to run to."

"Yeah…and on top of that, what if Wolf is smart enough to have another ship waiting for him on Fortuna, one we don't know about? He ditches the stolen shuttle, blows it up, and then flies away in the other ship to throw us off his trail. I could see him doing that."

Peppy chewed his lip upon hearing that. It looked like that hadn't crossed his mind. "Well, if you take the job…I'd just go to Fortuna anyway. I've already got the navy moving in to set up a dragnet, but it's going to take some time. If we spot Wolf or learn anything, we'll let you know. It's the best we can do right now."

Fox nodded. He had another question he wanted answered. "Now the case… I wanted to ask about it again. Is there anything hazardous in it? Is it explosive or nuclear or anything?"

Peppy's eyes went wide at the mention of explosives. "Oh, heavens no, thank goodness." He shook his head quickly. "Definitely not explosive, at least. The specific vault Wolf broke into doesn't contain anything like that. We know that much. It's also something small, because the case was small enough for Wolf to slip into a backpack. But I'd be very careful with that case once you get your hands on it. We'll work hard on figuring out what's in it, and then we'll pass the info along to you once we find out."

The suspiciously specific denial of it being explosives triggered a lot of other unpleasant thoughts in Fox's mind. He decided to press more. "Well, if it's not a bomb, what else might it be then? I mean…I'd kind of like to know Peppy, considering it's going to be on my mothership."

Peppy fidgeted on the bed, looking uncomfortable at the line of questioning. "I'm not at liberty to say. The contents of that vault are supposed to be a secret, after all. If I told you about everything that's stored in that vault, it could jeopardize planetary security."

"Peppy, you can trust me." Fox reached out to put a hand on Peppy's leg. "You raised me after my dad disappeared."

"I know Fox, but rules are rules." The hare looked torn, glancing at Fox and then glancing off to the side to avoid the vulpine's gaze. "I'm not a mercenary anymore, so I've got to follow them now. It's just the price I pay for a steady government paycheck."

That was a good point, although it was small comfort considering who still had to handle the case. "Can't you bend the rules a bit, just for me?"

"No, I can't." Peppy shook his head. "As much as I want to, I can't."

Fox's shoulders sagged as he let out a sigh, feeling defeated.

Peppy didn't like Fox's look either, but suddenly his ears shot up. "Say, I just had an idea. You can give us a call once you've got the case and we'll take it off your hands. You won't have to transport it at all, you'll get the job done fast, and you'll get paid fast. How about that?"

Well…there was no telling how far away the Cornerian Navy would be when they got the case, but potentially not needing to take the case onto the Great Fox II and getting paid faster sounded appealing. "Okay. I think that sounds fair."

"Okay, good." Peppy clasped his palms together. "So you think you'll do the job?"

"Maybe…" Fox hesitated, as he thought about something. "…but Falco only makes three pilots, assuming he takes the job. Do you think you could lend me at least one pilot?"

"Oh, of course." Peppy smiled. "I had a list drawn up and everything."

"Like who?"

"I thought about bringing Bill Grey here, but he told me he was too busy on Katina to come help."

That was too bad, Fox thought. He would have liked to catch up with Bill, since they hadn't seen each other much since the Lylat Wars. "Okay then. Who else?"

Peppy's phone buzzed on him before he could reply. "Sorry," he whispered, pulling it out of his pocket. The hare's eyes widened at something on the phone's screen. "Oh, looks like she's in the building now." He started typing in a text.

Fox raised an eyebrow. "She?"

"Oh, yes." Peppy nodded, as he kept typing away. "In fact you've met her before. Why don't we go out in the hallway to meet her? She's almost up here."

Fox blinked. "Right now?" And who was this mysterious woman anyway?

"Of course Fox. Don't tell me you still get shy around women."

Fox rolled his eyes at that. Meanwhile, Peppy chuckled and nodded, unlocking the door. He waved for Fox to walk outside. As he went into the hall, Fox could hear footsteps approaching from the left. He turned to look, seeing someone he never expected to see in a million years. A fennec fox strode down the hall, identifiable by the huge pointed ears, pointed muzzle, and orange fur. She wore a dark violet jumpsuit with a Cornerian Navy flight jacket over it. It was Fara Phoenix, his old girlfriend from his school days.

"Fox," she smiled, extending a hand. "Been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Yeah…." Fox took her hand slowly, still feeling surprised by the encounter. "We haven't seen each other since I was in the Cornerian Flight Academy."

Even though he'd put the failed relationship behind him a long time ago, this felt awkward to Fox. But Fara looked happy to see him in any case, so perhaps she'd put the whole thing behind her as well.

"So…Fara. What are you up to these days?"

"Oh, quite a bit." She brushed a hand through the fur on the side of her face. "Working for the Cornerian Navy's done well for me. I'm their chief test pilot now, and flight lead of Violet Squadron. Getting paid a really handsome salary for my dream job is icing on the cake, too."

"Sounds like you're doing pretty good." Fox maintained a blank look.

Fara nodded, an enthusiastic smile on her face. "Definitely. How about you?"

Fox went quiet, feeling a little embarrassed. "Uh…okay I guess."

He wouldn't admit it, but he felt jealous of Fara's stable career right now. Leaving the PMC business and joining the Cornerian military always made for a tempting choice in desperate times like this, but Fox liked the freedom of doing his own thing too much. He doubted he could function well in the military's rigid command structure. It was the same reason his father decided to leave the Cornerian military himself.

PMC work pays a lot better too son, his father had said. Fox scoffed at that thought. It was great being the hero of Lylat and avenging his father and all, but sometimes Fox wondered if he made a mistake when he destroyed Andross and his army. The Lylat Wars left Corneria as the only superpower in the Lylat System. That meant peace, and that also meant little business for Star Fox. Were it not for the Saurian Crisis and the Aparoid invasion, he would have been forced to disband Star Fox years ago.

"So, you're going to go after that case Wolf stole?" Fara asked. "Peppy said you had room for one more, at least." She giggled.

He felt a bit put off by the teasing, but kept talking. "Yeah…we do."

"Well, think you'd want to bring me along? It's sad about what happened here, but I wouldn't mind getting away from Corneria for a while."

"Oh yeah, sure." He chuckled as he realized something. "You know, I knew I'd get you into the mercenary lifestyle one day."

Fara smiled back, flashing her teeth. "Haha, I guess so."

Back when they dated in their academy days, Fara wanted to work for the Cornerian government. Meanwhile, Fox wanted to follow his father's path into mercenary work. That got them fighting quite a bit. In the end, Fox decided that keeping Star Fox intact was the most important thing to him, and they went their separate ways. Maybe since both of them valued their careers more than the relationship, the relationship wasn't meant to be anyway. Perhaps that's why he hadn't thought much of her for years. Come to think of it, maybe that was also why he felt a little more relaxed with Fara compared to Krystal. Both of them were more focused on professional rather than romantic matters.

At that moment, Falco stepped out into the hall, probably hearing the talking. His eyes flared open when he spotted Fara, accented by the red outlines around them. "Whoa…Fara, didn't expect to see you here!"

"That's exactly what I thought." Fox laughed.

Fara chuckled, turning to Falco. "Life been good to you too? Haven't really seen you since that motorcycle accident took you out of the academy…"

Falco's mood deflated instantly, his face slouching into a frown. "Do you have to bring that up? I'd like to forget about it."

Fara rolled her eyes. "Was it all that bad though? You had that rich friend of yours buy you a fighter, and then you got to be a mercenary like you wanted to. You were free as a…" Fara paused. "Well…free as a bird." She smirked.

Falco rolled his eyes as the joke.

Fox remembered that night Falco had his accident, ended up in the hospital, and got kicked out of the academy, all within just a few hours. While everything turned out okay in the end, it was not a pleasant memory at the time. "That guy who bought you that fighter…" Fox said. "He wasn't really a friend, was he?"

Falco shook his head. "No…we just met that day. He wanted to race me through the city, but then I wrecked my bike during the race. He almost ran me over."

"What was his name again?" Fox asked, crossing his arms.

"Giichi. He was that little yellow cat guy."

"I still can't believe he bought you a fighter." Fox shook his head.

"I know right?" Falco looked over to Fox, still looking amazed as he remembered that night. "The money he gave me… I needed a couple of years of hard work to earn that amount."

"Where does that cat get that sort of cash?" Fox chuckled. "I sure would like to know what his family does for a living. How can you get so rich that you just spend all that money and then act like it's nothing?"

"I'd sure like to know too!" Falco laughed. "Wish I'd asked him now."

"So what is Giichi up to these days?" Fara asked, reentering the conversation.

"No clue." Falco shook his head. "We talked a couple times on Lifebook after that, but it didn't last long since I had to leave Corneria to go work for Katt's dad. That kept me really busy. I think the last thing Giichi told me was that he was going for a computer science degree at the Cornerian Technical Institute. It always bothered me though. What would he need that for? You'd think he'd be set for life already."

"Well…" Fara shrugged. "Some people just get bored sitting around doing nothing. Maybe he just wanted to occupy his time with something."

"But going to school? Why not go surfing? Or on a big space cruise around Lylat?"

"He wanted to learn just for the sake of learning?" Fara shrugged again. "It's not unheard of. You could've probably learned from his example."

"Meh…" Falco rolled his eyes. "I just can't imagine going to school simply for fun. Anyway Fox…" He turned back to the vulpine. "Slippy and his dad told me about what happened here. I wanna come with you. I wanna help pay Wolf back for what he's done."

Fox raised his eyes. Well, that was easy. "I don't mind, but I need you to stick with us the whole mission. Can you do that?"

"Of course I will!" he laughed. "How could you ever doubt me?"

 _Oh, other than the fact you've already abandoned Star Fox twice before?_ Fox wanted to say that, but didn't think it would endear Falco to stick with him this time. "You promise? With pretty pink ice cream, whip cream, and cherry on top?"

"And with sprinkles and chocolate sauce!" Falco pointed a finger up in the air.

Fox laughed. Well…how could he not believe someone with that kind of enthusiasm? Falco always got this pumped before missions where he did his best flying, so Fox had a good feeling this time. "Okay. I'll let you back on the team."

"Great!" Falco did a fist pump.

"Oh, and Fara's coming with us by the way."

Falco's jaw dropped, turning to her. "Whoa, you serious?"

"Sure am Falco," Fara laughed, crossing her arms. "So how about it? Think you and your self-taught flying can keep up with me and my years of proper training?"

"Oh, you've got a deal, girl!" Falco did another fist pump, turning to her. "Flying as a mercenary on the ass ends of the galaxy is way harder than your cushy job here. You gotta get good fast or you die."

Fox smiled as well. The jabs felt friendly rather than competitive, so he wasn't too bothered with the pair taking shots at each other. He felt good about the cohesiveness of his new team so far. However, he noted Slippy hadn't come out of the room yet. While Fara and Falco talked to each other, Fox pushed past into the hospital room. Slippy still sat near his father, the two of them having an amicable, animated conversation about hydraulics, or thrusters, or something like that. Fox couldn't tell exactly what.

"Hey Slippy…" Fox said as he approached.

The two toads turned towards him. Slippy said, "Oh, hey Fox! We almost forgot you were here. Where'd you go?"

"Peppy just wanted to tell me more about our new job."

"Yeah…" Slippy nodded. "I mentioned it to Falco and he said he wanted to come too. You all right with that?"

"Definitely. I bet we'll need his help. Fara's coming along too. You remember her from the academy?"

"Yeah…" Slippy blinked. "Really? She's coming along too? Didn't you used to be girlfriend/boyfriend?"

"Used to… We went our separate ways." He gestured towards the door. "She's actually out in the hall right now."

"Wow, first Falco and then Fara." Slippy smiled. "Kinda feels like a school reunion, almost?"

"I know. Anyway Slippy, you should ready to leave. I'm gonna tell Peppy we're ready, and then we need to get out of here. Wolf's got a head start on us, and the longer we're here the further he gets away."

Slippy sniffled. "Okay Fox…I understand." He turned back to his father.

"Glad to know you're OK dad." Slippy hugged his father one last time, before breaking the embrace.

"I'll be fine son." Beltino beamed another smile, and gave his son a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Just go do what you have to do."

"I will Dad. I'll go get Wolf for you too."

"If you find him, give him hell, Slip."

Fox stopped and spun his head back around, gazing back at Beltino. His face whitened underneath the fur.

Slippy too leaned back away in surprise, as if his father had literally struck him with those words. "D-Dad…" Slippy stammered, as he leaned back in closer. "That's the first time I've ever heard you swear."

"I know Slippy," Beltino pat his son on the shoulder. However, his brows furrowed up over his eyes. "Nothing else feels adequate for how I feel. That's the first time someone's tried to kill me personally, and I want Wolf to pay for it."

"I don't think you're the only one who's got that feeling, Dad. He shouldn't get away with this." Slippy's voice also had uncharacteristic venom to it, as he clenched a hand around one of the bed posts. Fox found it unnerving coming from the normally sweet-natured Slippy.

"That's good Slip." Beltino smiled back. However, he appeared to sense the underlying anger too. "Just remember to come back alive too, all right? That's the important thing."

"I will Dad." Slippy gave his father one more hug, before walking to the door with the others. He turned around one last time.

"Goodbye son!" Beltino called out.

"Bye dad!"

* * *

A _/N: I feel like this chapter could have been better, but I've been stuck on it for a month now. This was a very hard chapter for me to write, since I had a ton of exposition to drop and I also had to write it in a way to keep it entertaining. I will admit though, the last bit with Falco and Fara was a lot of fun to write and I got it done within two nights. The rest of the chapter took most of the month, even though this chapter was already written in my first draft of Hazardous Contents from a year and a half ago._

 _I made a huge amount of changes to my old text. The first scene in the Great Fox II is totally new. So is the part where Falco and Fara arrive to accompany Star Fox. Also, in my old draft it was Bill Grey and Fara going with Fox and Slippy. However, as I wrote Star Fox's part in this story, I realized I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do with Bill on the Star Fox team. He was just kinda…there. That's why I decided to invent an excuse for Falco to rejoin the team, since I have a much better handle on Falco's personality and I think he's a much more fun character to write. Plus it gives me the chance to do interesting call backs to_ Just Gotta Ride _, as you can see. It probably won't be the last time I do that._

 _Now I know it's been a while since we've seen what's going on with Wolf, and I'm sorry about that. However, we will be seeing how he's doing in the next chapter. Just you wait. I'm already 1.5K words in on that one :)_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Wolf awoke on the Fortunan jungle floor, still next to the cliff where he went unconscious. Blinking several times, he looked around. The rain looked to have stopped, although clouds still obscured the sky. The sun hovered close to the horizon, the yellow hue bathing the clouds and everything else in a golden hue. It looked to be either evening or sunrise, but Wolf didn't know which. If it was sunset, he sure didn't want to be out in the jungle in the dark. How long had he been out anyway? Wolf checked his watch, but he discovered it was smashed, the digital display blank.

"Damn…"

Looking around, he spotted his Cornerian laser rifle on the ground. He picked it up, dusting it off and wiping away the mud and the moisture.

As he did so, he considered his next move. Continuing to search for the case would be hopeless all by himself, so he decided to start hiking back to the shuttle. Hopefully, someone from the _Retribution_ would still be there to find him. If not, he didn't know what he was going to do. But staying here wasn't going to do any good, so he decided to just get going.

Taking one last look at the jungle below, Wolf slung the rifle over his shoulder and started the trek back the way he'd came. It felt harder to go down compared to going up, like every step was admitting defeat. The trees soon reached far above him again, making it feel more like night rather than day.

Wolf looked around as he descended down the rocky slope, trying to get his bearings. But everything in the jungle still looked the same to him. He couldn't recognize anything from his hike up here. The lupine prayed he didn't get lost again trying to find his way back. The ever-present bushes and branches kept him from seeing farther than a few yards away. At least he could tell he was still descending a slope. If he kept doing that, he figured he was at least heading in the wrecked shuttle's general direction.

He pushed aside another large palm frond, and then saw something he thought impossible. The case. It was just there…sitting on a car-sized rock in a small clearing, faint rays of sunshine piercing the trees and highlighting it, making the metal gleam. A small voice nagged him in the back of the head, pointing out that he should probably be questioning why the case was there. The placement looked too perfect, as though someone just set it there for him to find. But he didn't care. He ran at the metal box like it was a steak dinner after days of fasting.

Wolf climbed on top of the rock, thrusting out a hand to grasp at the silver handle and—he bungled it. His hand missed the handle, sending the case tumbling backwards and out of sight. Snarling, he climbed over the stone after it…just in time to see it fall into a large mud bog adjacent to the stone. The resounding splash filled his ears.

Wolf growled, his ears folding back on his head. Wasting no time, he jumped right into the mud after the case, sinking down up to his knees in the cold, disgusting bog. He felt around under the muddy water, but no matter where he put his hands he couldn't feel the case. Nothing but mud came up whenever he brought his hands over the surface. When random searching didn't work, Wolf started going systematic and walked up and down the bog in lines, making sure to cover every inch. The case still didn't turn up.

"What the **hell**?!" Wolf kept pawing at the water, swatting it away. " **Where is it?!** "

He did a second search, feeling himself starting to panic. Nothing turned up. He did a third search. A fourth. Panic and confusion turned to anger. Anger turned to complete rage. Infuriated, Wolf started kicking the water out of the pit to drain the bog, sending the mud splashing everywhere. He looked like a five year old pup throwing a temper tantrum. He thrashed around with such anger that he didn't even bother looking where the water went.

Someone cried out, the voice sounding feminine. Startled, Wolf turned to see who it was: Sable. The mud covered her silky grayish-black fur, obviously shampooed and groomed to perfection until just now. Her cream-colored dress bore dark marks from where the muck splattered over it. Growling, Sable ran a hand through the filth, holding it up to look at it. She cast a dark glare at Wolf, her yellow slit eyes burning.

"Oh…oh no…" Wolf shook his head, not even bothering to wonder why she was here. "I am so, so sorry Sable."

"This dress cost me five figures." Sable flung her hand in Wolf's direction, sending some mud splattering back onto him. "Sorry isn't going to magically get it clean again, dog."

Dog. Wolf _loathed_ being called a dog. But she was his client, so he held his tongue. Despite the earlier comment about the dress, the panthress walked down into the mud bog with him. He found himself too terrified to point out she was ruining her dress and fur even more.

Someone grabbed his arms from behind, lifting him up off of the ground. Looking back, Wolf saw two soldiers restraining him, dressed in solid-black combat gear with face concealing masks. Sable strode towards Wolf, withdrawing a curved knife from underneath her dress, the talon-shaped blade gleaming in the fading sunlight.

"Your time is up, dog. I expected far better from the so-called best mercenary force in the galaxy."

"But the case! Didn't you see?" Wolf struggled to break free, but his restrainers felt more like statues rather than men. "It fell into this mud! It's right underneath your feet!"

"Quiet!" Sable slapped him across the face, not bothering to retract her claws as she did so. "Dogs should know when to be silent for their masters! I'm tired of your excuses!"

He felt the cuts on his face burning, hot blood running through his fur. Still, he kept pleading. "But I'm telling y—"

Sable gave the claw to the other side of his face, before pointing the tip of the curved knife at his throat. "I've had enough of you. You're paying for my wasted time with your pathetic life."

She moved the tip of the blade to one side of Wolf's neck, preparing to cut across it under the muzzle. Wolf struggled with all his might, but it did no good. The blade began to tear the soft flesh of his throat…

Wolf opened his eye, snapping awake. A dream. Just a dream. While relieved, Wolf realized he wasn't at that cliff anymore. Rock walls surrounded him on all sides, so he looked to be inside a cave now. In fact, Wolf realized someone put him in a crude bed, with a homemade straw mattress and pillow, his blanket fashioned out of the furry hide of some unknown creature. A single candle burned on a rocky outcropping nearby. He was wearing only his fatigues now too. But the armor and the rest of his gear sat in a neat pile near the lit candle. Wolf blinked, not knowing what to make of all this. Who brought him here?

Wolf figured he was still on Fortuna at least. The rock walls looked like the same type of stone on the outcroppings he climbed up earlier. Wanting to find out more, Wolf slid out of the bed, standing upright. Then he bonked his head on the low ceiling. Grumbling, the lupine ducked down, rubbing his head and sending his flattened mohawk askew. Wolf walked down the only passage out of the room. Torches on the walls provided light at intervals, the light reflecting off of the condensation on the rock walls. He could hear water drops echoing in the small tunnel. It felt like he'd gone back in time to the caveman days.

The tunnel curved to the left, the end unseen. But Wolf could see a brighter light around the corner, casting itself on the walls. He stopped, wondering if he should just walk straight into the unknown. But then again, if the person who brought him here wanted to kill him, he would have done it already. He wouldn't have put Wolf in a bed like that.

His mind made up, Wolf strode into the next chamber. It was shaped like the inside of a bowl, the ceiling high enough for the lupine to stand at his full height. A fire burned in the middle, the smoke feeding up into a hole in the ceiling. A few rough-hewn, homemade chairs huddled close to the flames. Olive green ammunition containers lined the curved walls, but items like food, fruit, clothes, and tools filled them instead of rounds. Wolf spotted an old laser rifle and a machete hanging from wall hooks on the other side of the room. He could still hear the Fortunan rain outside, the sound echoing down one of the other side tunnels.

"Ah, you're awake."

Wolf looked towards the fire, the voice coming from behind it. He reached for his pistol…only to realize it wasn't there.

"No need for that, Wolf." The voice spoke with a warm, friendly air, almost sounding honey-like as it oozed from one word to the next. "I know you're confused, but don't worry. We're allies."

The stranger stepped out from behind the fire, revealing himself as a green iguana. The dim firelight gave the lizard a monstrous, alien air, the glow highlighting the spiky frills on his head and neck. Old, badly healed scars ran along his face and snout. Taking a moment to look at his clothes, Wolf recognized them as being Venomian jungle fatigues, from back in the Lylat Wars days. The threadbare, faded fabric barely held itself together, patched up with bits of metal, hide, string, and other scavenged materials.

The iguana offered a smile, but his long mouth full of sharp teeth made him look even more frightening. "It's an honor to finally meet you, sir." He gave a salute. "I am Lieutenant Tadao Samorin. Field medic."

Wolf stared at Tadao, not knowing what to say. This whole experience felt surreal. Still, he managed to find some words. "Uh…how do you know my name?"

"Who doesn't?" The iguana chuckled. "You're the most famous soldier in Andross's great military. Our dear leader puts your image all over our domain, after all!"

Tadao gestured towards a poster on the wall that Wolf hadn't noticed until now. Faded with time and covered with mildew spots, Wolf nonetheless recognized an image of his younger self, standing proud while flanked by his old wingmen: Leon, Pigma Dengar, and Andrew Oikonny. Above them, a massive space battle sprawled across the top of the poster, Wolfens leading the charge as the Androssian Navy easily overran a Cornerian fleet. The poster's text declared: _Star Wolf's fangs rip the enemy to shreds! Follow them onto victory!_

While Tadao looked proud of the poster, it only reminded Wolf of regret and failure. Star Fox shot him and his squadron down twice during that war, and Andross and his empire were both long gone. Besides that, Pigma embezzled money from Star Wolf while Andrew just up and left the squadron without a word after the Lylat Wars ended. Both of them died a year or two ago as well, around the time of the Aparoid invasion. Not a good track record for what this poster predicted, all things considered.

The lizard seemed to pick up on Wolf's sour reaction. "Is something wrong?"

Wolf shook his head, still gazing at the picture. "No. It's nothing." Wolf then remembered he still had a lot of questions. This situation felt so weird he forgot to ask until just now. He looked back over at Tadao. "How did you find me out in that jungle?"

"Wasn't exactly hard." Tadao settled into one of the crude chairs by the fire. He waved for Wolf to join him. "Please, sit."

With some reluctance, Wolf chose his own chair, backing away a bit from Tadao as he pressed into the seat back.

"I've held out here against the Cornerians for a long time. By my count…" Tadao glanced at a water-stained notebook near the fire, the pages covered with tally marks. "…I have served Andross here for nine years, three months, and twenty-two days. Long enough to learn how to live off the land here. Helps that I'm a medic. I learned how to use the plants here for foods and to make medicines. Learned how to track game too. That's how I found you."

Wolf cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"Forgive me." Tadao showed that shark-like smile again. "You may be a great hero, but you don't know anything about hiding a trail. It started when I heard a ship go down near me. Decided to go out and investigate. Ships sometimes crash out here. Always good for things that are hard to get out here…" The iguana glanced at the machete on the wall. "…once I liberate them for our emperor."

Wolf's ears folded backwards at that last remark, eye widened.

Tadao didn't seem to notice. "I found your ship. Saw it was a Cornerian vessel. Wasn't much inside…but then I noticed your footprints leading away from it. At first, I thought you were a Cornerian survivor, so I followed the trail. Was child's play tracking you. You left boot prints on the ground. Strands of grass crushed underfoot. Leaves streaked with mud, where they contacted your clothing. Very careless, I'm afraid. No offense." Tadao chuckled.

"…it's all right." Wolf spoke almost in a whisper.

He was too afraid of being in arm's reach of a serial machete killer to worry about offense. A machete killer who _liked_ him. You'd think that would put Wolf at ease, but instead it made Tadao unpredictable. It was easy to know what to do with a psycho trying to kill you. Just kill him first. But a psycho who _liked_ you? What do you do then?

Nonetheless Tadao continued the story. "When I saw you unconscious by that cliff, wearing that Cornerian uniform, I considered just hacking your neck off with that machete…" Tadao looked into the fire, the light reflecting off his slit eyes.

Wolf couldn't place the emotion in them. What did Tadao feel about almost taking Wolf's head? Sadness? Joy? Boredom? He found it terrifying that he didn't know.

The lizard shook his head and looking back to Wolf. "But lucky for you, I decided to take off your helmet so I could look you in the face. So glad I decided to do it now. If I had done that by accident, I probably would have been so ashamed I'd have slit my own throat after."

Wolf found himself speechless, not just from terror but at Tadao's extreme patriotism. This guy really believed all of Andross' wartime propaganda, even though he had outlived that ape's empire by many years. The isolation sharpened his resolve, rather than diminishing it.

"Speaking of…" Tadao leaned on his armrest towards Wolf. "Why were you dressed as the enemy to begin with? Why were you flying that shuttle? Were you undercover or something?"

This question gave Wolf pause. Should he tell Tadao the truth or not? This lizard lived in a warped version of reality, and Wolf suspected he would not react well to his view being challenged. Thinking of that, it made the choice very simple: just play along. The alternative was too dangerous. He'd probably be rid of Tadao once the _Retribution's_ crew found him anyway.

Clearing his throat, Wolf started speaking again. "Uh….yes, I was undercover. I had a special mission." Well, it wasn't exactly a lie…

"Really?" The lizard's slit eyes widened in astonishment. "Andross has you spying in enemy territory now? How interesting. I never fingered you for going undercover, but I'm sure you did a great job."

"Heh heh…yeah…" Wolf chuckled to hide his nervousness.

"I'll understand if you don't want to say anything, since it sounds like classified information, but…" Tadao leaned forward in great interest, looking like he was fanboying on Wolf or something. "Could you tell me what your mission was?"

Wolf found the fanboying more worrying than flattering. "Well…. Andross needed me to steal a classified case from Corneria's military vaults, in their main base."

"How exciting! Straight into the enemy's main stronghold, for our great empire!"

Wolf wanted to laugh at Tadao's ignorance, but kept that to himself. Even so, the iguana's enthusiasm gave Wolf an idea. That case was still out there somewhere in the jungle. Tadao already proved he knew this area well by finding Wolf. He'd be a huge help getting the case back.

Wolf steered the conversation in the appropriate direction. "I did get the case, but I got attacked on the way back to Venom. That's why I crashed. The case is somewhere out in the jungle."

"Is that so?" Tadao grinned, standing up from his chair. "It would be an honor to help you find it. I would love to help the famous Wolf O'Donnell complete one of his missions!"

For the first time since they started talking, Wolf gave back a sincere smile. "And I would be glad for you to come with me." He didn't even have to ask Tadao to help. That mind trick couldn't have gone any better.

While Tadao looked giddy over Wolf saying yes to his proposal, he settled back down into his chair. "Before we go out, I need to ask you something. You were sick when I found you. Since I'm a medic, I did what I could for you. Don't have a lot of proper medical supplies left, but your life is too important to not use them. Are you feeling better now?"

Wolf had almost forgotten about that. "Actually yeah…I feel fine, come to think of it." Tadao bringing this up piqued his interest. "What was I sick with? What'd you do?"

"You had some poison in your system. Gave you some activated charcoal to absorb the poison. Seemed to do the job just fine."

The lupine blinked, surprised by the answer. "I was poisoned? When the hell did I get poisoned?" Wolf narrowed his eye.

Tadao leaned forward towards Wolf, suddenly looking a lot more like a doctor. "When was the first time you remembered feeling sick?" It was as though he were Wolf's primary care physician and this was a yearly checkup. Tadao just needed a white coat and tie for the look to be complete.

Wolf searched back in his memory. "It was right after I crashlanded on Fortuna. I threw up on the floor, then I went outside and—" He frowned. "I walked through the woods for a while, I hiked up to that cliff to find the case…and then I blacked out."

"Hmm…" Tadao looked away for a second, deep in thought. After a moment the iguana met his eyes again. "What did you eat or drink before you started feeling sick? Within the last twenty four hours or so?"

"Just some nasty rations in our stolen shuttle. We ate them on the way to Corneria. Plus some bottled water."

"And all of that was sealed up in its packages? No seals or caps broken until you consumed them?"

Wolf nodded.

Tadao narrowed his eyes. "Think harder. Was there anything else?"

Wolf searched deep and hard through his memory, going back to the start of the CCSNB infiltration and working forwards. As he did so he recounted to Tadao how the infiltration went. Before long he reached the bit where they fled the base.

"…so we just barely slipped out of the base. I thought we'd gotten away free and clear, but then this Cornerian pilot messed up everything. He shot up our ship, but we managed to escape here through a warp portal. But then the rear hatch came off and everything got sucked out. The benches, Franco and Harry, and even the cooler with the beer—wait." Like a videotape, Wolf's memory rewound backwards from that point. A realization struck Wolf. "Right before we got attacked in the asteroid field, Franco gave me a bottle of beer. I took one sip from it."

"Aaaaah…" Tadao breathed out as his mouth twisted into a big, gaping smile. The iguana let out a little chuckle as he leaned forward with his eyes closed.

Wolf raised an eyebrow. Why did Tadao sound so happy about figuring that out?

"That's when it happened." Tadao pointed at Wolf. "Franco gave you a poisoned beer. If it got you that sick, it's a good thing you only took one sip, or you'd probably be dead now."

While Wolf thought he'd be relieved to be alive, finding out that Franco poisoned him caused the lupine to freeze up. "You're saying that Franco tried to kill me? He's a traitor?"

"More like he was…if he got sucked out into space like you said."

"I know, but what if he's not the only one?" All sorts of other unpleasant possibilities started bubbling up in Wolf's head. "What if Harry was in on it too? And there could be more moles within Star Wolf." Wolf shook his head. "Shit…I've got to warn Leon and Panther. But I've got to find that case too…"

"Panther?" Tadao cocked his head.

Wolf frowned at Tadao, but then blinked with realization. "Oh…I'm afraid that Andrew and Pigma were killed in action. Panther Caruso is their replacement." Again, not exactly a lie.

Despite Wolf treating it like nothing, Tadao's mouth gaped open in legitimate shock. "What?! Two of Andross's best pilots?! Dead?! This is terrible news!"

Wolf found it strange that Tadao felt a lot more mournful over their deaths than he ever did. Nonetheless, Wolf pat Tadao on the shoulder to ease his concern. "It's all right. Panther's doing well…fighting the good fight and…carrying on where they left off." He tacked on the patriotic-sounding slogans for some flavor, adding a little fist pump to the end. "Anyway…I need to get in touch with the _Retribution_. That's Star Wolf's mother ship, and they're hovering over Fortuna. Can you help me?"

While Tadao still looked upset, he provided the information Wolf needed. "I might be able to. While you were out, I saw some small ships that looked like scouts buzzing around the jungle. I wasn't sure if they were enemies or not. You can actually kind of hear them over the rain…"

Tadao paused so Wolf could listen. Raindrops could be heard coming from one of the tunnels, and sure enough a dull engine roar could be heard every so often over it.

"Go get your gear. I'll meet you at the end of this tunnel when you're ready." The iguana pointed at the passageway where the sounds were coming from. Meanwhile, he walked over to collect his machete from the wall.

Wolf didn't need to be told twice. The lupine gathered up his things from the small 'bedroom' and walked down the corridor Tadao indicated. The passage made a few curves back and forth, before ascending upwards. At the end, Wolf found Tadao standing at a wooden door mounted into the ceiling, like the cellar door beneath a house. As the lupine approached, Tadao pushed up on the door, opening up the tunnel to the outside. Rain poured in, dousing the rocks at the entrance. It looked lighter compared to when Wolf got here though. Tadao moved to one side of the door, waving for Wolf to move up. Ship engines droned overhead in the sky.

Wolf moved to walk outside, but Tadao threw out an arm to stop him. "Don't step outside just yet. I don't want anyone to know where my hideout is if they're not friendly. I want you to identify the ships first."

Cupping a hand over his eyes to protect from rain, Wolf began to scan the stormy sky, his ears rotating to track the engine noise. A scout ship flew past as a thunderbolt struck, the lightning silhouetting the ship as an arrowhead.

Wolf sighed with relief. "Yeah…that's definitely one of my scout ships." He pointed at the aircraft. "We need to signal them."

"Be right back." Tadao walked back into his hideout, reappearing again about a minute later. He handed Wolf a red-colored tube. "Had a box of flares since I got here. Hope they still work."

"Let's find out then." Wolf pulled the cap off of the flare, exposing the flammable end. Two quick rubs with the cap's striking surface lit the red flame. He started to wave the flare into the sky.

The red glare got a response right away. The dart-shaped ship turned in the sky, heading right for them. It descended and went into a hover mode, approaching close enough for Wolf to see the pilot. When the pilot identified Wolf, he stuck his hand out the window and gave a quick thumbs up, then waved for them to follow. The dart ship turned around and took off, likely to look for a suitable landing site.

Wolf grinned, and started to step out of the door.

"Not so fast." Tadao placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. "I've got the area around here booby-trapped. I don't want you falling in a spike pit or anything. Let me lead you."

Booby traps? Spikes? Holy shit. That'd be quite a way to die. Wolf immediately stepped aside to let Tadao go first. After shutting the door, Tadao started hiking through the jungle in the general direction the shuttle went.

"I broke a branch wherever there's a trap, in case I forget where they are," Tadao said. "I'll point them out to you, but keep an eye out just in case. Clear?"

"Crystal." Wolf stepped wherever Tadao placed his foot, staying as close as possible. At the same time, he tried to look everywhere at once for those broken branches. But for the life of him though, he couldn't see any of them. Felt like being in the middle of a minefield.

As they turned another corner, Tadao stopped and pointed. "Broken branch. I put a paddle trap there. You step on one side of a paddle board. Then the other end of the paddle comes up and hits you in the face with spikes."

Wolf's eyes widened. He wouldn't have noticed the branch if it hadn't been pointed out to him. Already, Wolf found himself appreciating his new guide. They trekked down a hillside, following the sound of the scout ship's engines. Along the way, Tadao pointed out a few other traps. Wolf tried to commit their locations to memory, but he found it hard enough trying to figure out where they were relative to Tadao's hideout, let alone remembering any other locations.

Before long, they found their way to the bottom of the valley. Here the trees gave way to flat rocks, the footing slippery due to the light rain.

"Shouldn't be any more traps," Tadao announced. "Wouldn't be able to hide them down here anyway."

"That's a relief." Wolf found the walk across the rocks almost relaxing with the danger behind them. The dart ship could be seen resting in the distance, a couple of grunts from the _Retribution_ walking towards them.

One of the grunts, a warthog, came up to Wolf first. "Boss…good to see you again." He saluted Wolf. The lupine returned it, giving a sincere smile back. His companion, a crocodile, quickly saluted as well.

"You two will be rewarded for finding me." Wolf dropped the salute. "Tell me…where are Leon and Panther? I need to talk with them right away."

"They'll be here any minute now. They're in their own ship."

"Thank you. Tadao, let's get out of the rain." The lupine took the lead, marching back to the grunt's ship and taking a seat in the back to get dry. The iguana soon joined him, wiping the water off of his old uniform.

"It's impressive that Andross gave you a full mothership and a fleet of smaller ships to go with it…" Tadao glanced around, noting the modernity of the dart ship and its amenities. "You must be doing a very good job to get all this."

"Yeah…sure am…" Wolf replied, not really listening. His attention focused on the rainy sky, as he waited for Panther and Leon to arrive. They had a lot to talk about.

Meanwhile, the waterhog and croc sat in the cockpit up front, each of them glancing at Tadao every now and then. They didn't seem to like Tadao's facial scarring and his rough-looking uniform, but felt too afraid to ask questions about it. Wolf didn't care either way.

Another scout ship appeared, landing close by. The doors slid open, Panther and Leon hopping out, the two of them wearing rain ponchos to keep away the wet. "Ah, finally!" Wolf grinned and jumped out of the ship, running back into the rain to greet them.

"You're a sight for sore eyes!" Leon chuckled. "Glad you're OK Wolf. What happened?"

"Got shot up while we were trying to escape through the Meteo asteroid field." Wolf glanced up at the cloudy sky. "I couldn't keep her in the air and had to crash here."

"It looked that way," Leon said. "We saw all the blaster marks all over the crashed ship."

"So… Do you have the case?" Panther asked.

Wolf's smile vanished, as he looked back at his companions. "No…it fell out of the shuttle while I was one the way down to the surface."

"That's not good…" Panther looked nervous, his eyes darting about as he shifted on his feet. Of course, all of them were anxious about getting the case back, but Panther seemed even more worried than that for some reason.

Wolf thought this peculiar, but brushed it aside.

"Say Wolf…" Leon looked behind the lupine. "Who's your new friend here? And why does he have a machete on his belt?"

Wolf turned around, just in time to see Tadao march up and salute both Leon and Panther. "Lieutenant Tadao Samorin. Field medic, and proud soldier in the service of Andross!"

Leon and Panther exchanged funny looks between themselves, not knowing what to make of this. Then together they looked back at Wolf, expecting answers.

Wolf grinned to mask his nervousness. "Tadao, this is Leon and Panther." He stepped aside and gestured towards them.

"The greatest squadron in Andross' military…" Tadao could not contain his excitement. He grinned, flashing his teeth as he strode over. "This is a real honor."

Leon and Panther returned the smile to be polite, but Wolf could see the confusion in their eyes.

Tadao extended a hand to Leon first. "You must be Leon. It's wonderful to meet you!"

"Pleasure…" Leon returned the handshake, but he gave an aside glance to Wolf every now and then.

After finishing with the chameleon, he turned over to Panther. Panther looked like he didn't want to do this, but accepted the handshake with reluctance.

"And you must be the new one, Panther." Tadao appeared unphased by his hesitation, the lizard's excitement and smile as strong as ever. "I regret that I haven't heard of you before, but I'm sure you'll make a great name for yourself in our empire's forces. I'm glad to see you're carrying on the proud traditions Pigma and Andrew left behind."

Panther gave a funny look to Wolf, considering he knew what bad pilots Pigma and Andrew were, but kept his mouth shut. Still, the jungle cat gave a bland smile to Tadao and shook hands as well.

"All right… That's enough for introductions." Wolf turned to Tadao. "If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with my teammates in private for a moment."

"Of course Wolf!" Tadao folded his arms behind him, and took several steps backwards to give the three of them space. "Anything for our emperor's greatest pilots!"

Wolf herded his two teammates some distance away. They kept glancing back at Tadao, looking perplexed by the iguana's remarks.

Once at a safe distance, Wolf started whispering rapid fire to them. "It may be hard to believe this, but…" Wolf took a deep breath. "Tadao is a Venomian holdout from the Lylat Wars. He thinks the war is still ongoing, and that we're still fighting for Andross."

"Are you serious?" Leon narrowed his eyes…somehow even more so than how he usually kept them. "He actually believes everything he's talking about?"

"I'm dead serious." Wolf cast a quick glance at Tadao, still standing as though he were in formation. "But we need him, at least for now. He's lived in this jungle for almost a decade, so he knows the area. I bet he'll be a big help finding the case."

"I see..." Panther stroked his chin. "So you want us to humor him then? Make sure his warped view of reality stays intact?" With the little halfway smile he put on, Panther seemed to find the idea amusing.

"Precisely." Wolf didn't like what he was about to suggest next. Tadao was happy to be with them, but he was also a crazy, unpredictable machete killer and Wolf didn't want to be close to him any longer than necessary. "We keep him with us in our own shuttle, and we search for the case with him. He can't talk to anyone else in our crew. Got it?"

"I don't like it…especially with that big knife, but you're the boss Wolf." Leon nodded.

"How many people did you bring down from the _Retribution_ to find me?"

"Nearly everyone," Panther said. "The _Retribution's_ being run by a skeleton crew right now."

"Good." Then Wolf wouldn't have to waste time mobilizing anyone. "We get the grunts down here hunting for the case now. You found my shuttle, right?"

"What was left of it." Panther smirked. "Surprised you're still alive."

Wolf rolled his eyes. "Yeah well… Anyway, the case must have fallen out somewhere along my flight path when I crashed. That's where we concentrate the search. Did the _Retribution_ record my path?"

"Got it right here. I was on the bridge when we picked you up." Panther brought out a small tablet computer, showing him an image of the local Fortunan surface. A white line crossed the map, with an X at the end. "That's where you went down. So we check everywhere along this line, more or less?"

"That's about the size of it. But we have another problem." Wolf stopped, leaning in closer. "We might have moles in the _Retribution's_ crew. And I don't mean the literal kind."

"What? Spies?" Leon's baseball-sized eyes widened.

"I found out that Harry and Franco tried to poison me before the shuttle went down. Tadao cured me and saved my life."

"They tried to kill you?" Leon rolled his eyes. "I told you Panther and I should have come with you instead of them."

"Believe me Leon, I would have preferred it that way, but in a place like Corneria's main base?" Wolf shook his head. "Non-canines would have stood out there. Just too dangerous."

"Considering what happened, I find that last thing you said rather ironic." Leon smirked.

"Well…what's done is done." Wolf shrugged. "So Leon… I've got a special job for you."

"And that would be?"

"Whatever we did with Harry's and Franco's background checks, it wasn't enough. I need you to go back to the _Retribution_ , and look deeper and harder into their pasts. Find out _everyone_ they've worked for. Go all the way back to when they were in grade school. Find everything on them. I want to find out if they were working alone or if they're part of something bigger. Like maybe they're Cornerian spies or something. Find out who their friends are on the ship. They might be moles too. Dig up everything you can, as fast as you can. You find out anything interesting, you call me. Got it?"

"No problem, Wolf," Leon smiled. "I'll get right to it. And I'll tell all the little grunts to start looking for the case while I'm at it. Good luck finding that case."

Leon hurried over to the drop ship, speaking with the two grunts and ordering them to take him back to the mothership.

As the ship took off, Wolf turned to Tadao and Panther. "Okay…you two are with me. Let's go looking for that case."

Tadao looked overjoyed at the prospect. As they walked back to the shuttle, he talked like an excited kid. "I can't believe this. I thought I'd never get to fly ever again."

Wolf looked over to the iguana for a moment. He wondered what he would have done if he had been in Tadao's place during the Lylat Wars. Gone insane? Committed suicide? Wolf thought he'd probably do those things if confined to a jungle for ten years. Amazing what kind of resolve Tadao had to have to make it this long. Wolf hoped they wouldn't have to keep him around too much longer. As soon as they got the case, Wolf was leaving Tadao behind and they were getting the hell out of here. He had no idea what Tadao would do when he found out the Lylat Wars were long over.

The three of them piled into the second dropship, with Wolf assuming the pilot's seat, Panther riding shotgun, and Tadao sitting in the back and looking over their shoulders. During the pre-flight checks, Wolf talked to Panther.

"So…how long was it between when you picked me up on radar and when you found me?"

Panther paused, checking his watch. "I think it's been about seven hours or so."

"That long, huh?" Wolf shook his head, as he adjusted some dials. "We've got to find that case fast. I wouldn't be surprised if the Cornerian Navy is on their way here right now."

After a few more moments, the drop ship's engines spun up, taking them over the canopy of trees. Panther guided Wolf back towards where he crashed the shuttle, as the lupine swooped the drop ship low over the trees. Within minutes, Wolf found himself back where this whole mess started. More ships buzzed near the crash site, many of his grunts visible on the ground as they picked through the brush and trees.

"Looks like they've got this area covered." Wolf spun up the ship's thrusters, pushing them faster. "Let's fly out further. Panther, keep us on the path. Tadao, keep an eye out."

"No problem, Wolf." Panther held his tablet close, as they flew low over the jungle trees.

" _Ryōkai, Okami-san!_ " Tadao stood up, so he could get a better view out the front.

Wolf gave Tadao a funny look at that last bit, but kept watching the ground below. It was a good thing Corneria didn't have much of a presence on Fortuna anymore. Otherwise, this little operation would have drawn all sorts of attention. Nonetheless Wolf found himself annoyed by the whole thing. He shouldn't be having to do any of this right now. Right now, he should be dropping off that case with Sable, getting his reward, and sitting on a beach in Aquas somewhere. Instead he was stuck looking for a needle in a haystack down here, except the haystack covered at least several dozen square miles, and it was cold, wet, and rainy.

At least the rain had eased up compared to when he got here, but Wolf didn't think they'd have daylight for much longer. Finding anything in the jungle would be near impossible once night fell, even with Tadao's help. If they didn't find the case soon, they'd have to wait until next morning to resume searching. That was time they probably didn't have.

The ship flew onwards, leaving the other drop ships and search parties behind. The carpet of trees stretched outwards in every direction, occasionally broken up by a stream or a small grass clearing here and there. Wolf wondered where they'd even begin searching. Down below, everything still looked the same. He cut the ship's throttle, so they drifted slower over the trees. They puttered along like this for another forty-five minutes, the sky slowly darkening around them. No one said anything, as their eyes fixated on the ground. Wolf became very tense, clenching the flight stick tight as time continued to drain away. Still no sign of anything below but more trees and grass.

All of a sudden, Tadao put a hand on Wolf's shoulder. The little touch made him flinch.

"Hey…could you hover for a second? I see something." Tadao leaned forward, his head and frills coming into Wolf's view.

After slowing the ship, Wolf couldn't help it. He leaned forward too, intensely curious. "What did you see?"

"Look….do you see that down there?" Tadao pointed at a narrow strip of grass snaking through the trees, the ground exposed to the open air. A stream coursed along the bright green band, lined with rocks and mud.

Wolf cocked his head. "I see the grass and the stream. What's special about it?"

"Look closer… I can see tire tracks in the mud. Grass crushed beneath the wheels of a vehicle. Somebody's been driving along that stream recently."

"Is that normal?" Panther asked.

"No…not at all." Tadao shook his head. "I've never seen anyone try driving a car or something out this far. We need to go down and take a closer look."

"Let's do it then." Wolf pointed the ship downwards. He didn't know what the tire tracks meant yet or if they even had anything to do with the case, but at this point he felt desperate enough to check out any clue.

They landed in a wider spot on the strip of grass, hiking back to where the tire tracks began. Tadao walked ahead, stopping in a spot where the tracks could be seen in the mud.

The iguana gave a quick analysis. "The rain's muddled the tracks a bit, but it looks like something small…perhaps an ATV. And I can see tracks going in both directions, both to the northeast and the southwest. The same tires made both sets of tracks. So the ATV went one way and then doubled back for some reason." Tadao picked a stick off of the ground and walked beside the tracks, tracing them with the stick. "The prints going northeast look fresher, and they're on top of the first set in places. That's the direction they're headed now."

"So what should we do?" Wolf looked up from the tracks.

"Let's go northeast." Tadao looked up. "Maybe we can catch up to whoever made the tracks."

"But we don't even know if this has anything to do with the case," Panther pointed out.

"We may as well check it out since we're running short on time." Tadao looked up to the sky, the gray clouds a little bit darker since they landed. "Besides, it's very suspicious anyone would come out this far."

Wolf let Tadao take the lead, as they followed the trail left behind by the mysterious quad biker. Wolf hoped this led to something. The sky continued to darken overhead, their time to search running out. The trail led them away from the stream and back into the trees again. After about thirty minutes of walking through the brush, Tadao halted next to a series of tree stumps.

"These trees…they were cut down recently." The iguana pointed at them.

"Yeah? So what?" Panther asked.

"The trees weren't cut down because they were in the way. You can see the path goes right by them." Tadao waved at the tire tracks on the ground. "And the crude cuts make it look like it was done with hand-axes." Tadao indicated the rough cuts on the top of the stumps, along with the marks left by missed swings below.

Wolf found Tadao's talk interesting, but he didn't know where the lizard was going with this. "So why would they be cut down?"

"Likely to build shelter…" Tadao turned away, as he pulled out his machete and started to scan the area around them. The lizard crouched down, waving for Wolf and Panther to do likewise. Speaking in a whisper, Tadao said, "Quiet…they might still be close by."

Wolf's eyes widened. Taking the blaster rifle off of his back, he checked the charge and also looked around, but couldn't see anything but more brush.

Tadao waved for Panther and Wolf to follow, gesturing towards the ground. _Stay low. No talking._ Now crouch walking, the lizard slid through the foliage without making a sound, Wolf following in his wake.

The lizard moved through the brush and undergrowth, comfortable in his own territory. He made so little noise that sometimes Wolf lost track of Tadao whenever a large leaf or brush separated them. By contrast, Wolf winced whenever he snapped a twig or rustled a leaf. Not to mention, he found himself wound up over the possibility of combat.

After a little bit of creeping, Tadao suddenly stood up. "It's okay. I don't think anyone's close by. Look at this."

He pushed aside the last set of palm fronds, revealing a small clearing. Now Wolf knew where the trees had gone. Against a rock wall on one side of the clearing, somebody erected a lean-to out of the cut-down tree trunks. The remains of a firepit sat close by, doused by the rain. Logs arranged around the campfire served as seating. Bits of trash could be found here and there too. Water bottles. Food wrappers. Cigarette butts.

Eyeing the mess, Panther raised an eyebrow. "So people came this way. What if they were just campers?"

Tadao shook his head. "I doubt that. Besides myself, this is the first time I've seen someone set up shelter out here. You'd have to be a mighty dedicated camper to come out this far. Anyway, enough about that…" Tadao waved his hand around the encampment. "We should search this place."

"You think we'll find something pointing to the case here?" Wolf asked.

Tadao shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not, but we might as well look since we're here. I'll check over here." Tadao walked towards what looked like a little trash pile off to one side.

Wolf decided to look inside the lean-to. Someone had swept it down, leaving a bare dirt floor. However, he spotted a pile of leaves, twigs, and other debris in the back. Probably where the occupants pushed everything that used to fill the floor. Wolf started to pick through it, finding random odds and ends in the natural waste. An empty pack of cigarettes. A mostly used up tube of toothpaste. He was about to leave when his eyes caught the glint of something shiny in the pile, just barely poking out of a mess of dry leaves. The glint looked familiar…

His heart pounding, Wolf picked it up. While not attached to a case anymore, it was a silver briefcase handle. It bore the same Cornerian government tags as the silver briefcase he stole from the vault. There could be no doubt. This came from _the_ case.

Wolf squeezed the handle in his hand. "Son of a bitch…"

* * *

 _A/N: I think I'm starting to become Elarix, as far as chapter length goes. But there honestly wasn't a good point to end on until we got here. By the way, I'd say I have about 2-3 chapters left of beta text at this point, and then we'll be in uncharted territory. Ooooh, scary! Not that I'm too afraid or anything. This chapter was about 95% original text._

 _Tadao is the reason for this. In the beta, Panther and Leon found Wolf in the jungle and Leon cured Wolf's poisoning. Then they had the conversation about Harry and Franco that Wolf and Tadao had in my final version. Also, the group would have discovered the case left an impact crater on the surface (since it fell from orbit in the beta). I figure a crater would be easy to spot from the air. However, Wolf would have searched a mud bog that formed in the crater, but he doesn't find the case. Wolf's dream is a remnant of that scene._

 _But now that the case is falling within atmosphere, there couldn't be a crater anymore. I had to invent a new way for Star Wolf to get clues on where the case might be. That's one of the reasons Tadao came to be. I also felt like I wasn't fleshing out Fortuna enough as a setting in the beta, and Tadao would be a great way to draw the reader into it. I just had this idea about Wolf encountering a crazy survivalist on Fortuna in my head when I got to this bit, so I decided to run with it. Tadao was a lot of fun to create, so I hope you enjoy him too. I think you can guess the historical inspiration too. You get an imaginary cookie if you tell me in the reviews :)_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Panther looked through a pile of discarded trash on the edge of the camp's clearing, as the relentless rain pounded down on his poncho. He didn't know what the hell they were doing this far out in the jungle. They didn't even know if the people who made this camp had anything to do with the case. A crashing sound reached Panther's ears. He spun around to see Wolf scrambling out of the lean-to. What got him so excited?

"Panther! Tadao! Over here!" Wolf held out a shiny piece of metal as he strode over. "This is the case's handle. No question about it."

Panther felt his heart pounding as he took the handle, looking back and forth between it and Wolf. "So these people _did_ take the case?" The cat closed his eyes, running a hand down the back of his head. "Oh…this is terrible… What am I going to do?"

"What do you mean you?" Wolf narrowed his eye, taking back the handle. "I think we're all in deep shit here."

"Oh… Right." Panther glanced away, pulling the hood of his poncho further down over his face. He hoped Wolf didn't notice his fear.

It was his Hyoodin. He'd borrowed so much of Star Wolf's money to buy it, thinking this job's payday would cover up the transaction before anyone noticed. But now they knew for sure someone else had the case, and was who knows where at this point. Panther felt like he was slipping into a black hole with no escape. If they didn't find the case thief and fast, Wolf would find out about Panther's little purchase. What would Wolf do then? Panther served as the number three member of Star Wolf, but that used to be Pigma's title too. And Panther just realized he'd embezzled money, exactly the same way Pigma did…

"First it was Harry and Franco…" Wolf looked up at the sky. "Now we know they've got friends here on Fortuna… Just how many of these people are there? Why do they want the case?!" He snarled the last few words, his tail thrashing behind him.

"Wolf, are you saying this is someone else besides the Cornerians?" Tadao raised an eyebrow.

Wolf snapped his head back to Tadao, caught off guard by the question. "Uh…"

Panther forgot. Due to his ten-year isolation, Tadao still lived in a warped version of his own reality here, where the Lylat Wars were still ongoing. The cat winced as Wolf struggled to come up with an explanation.

Finally Wolf just sighed and said, "Well, we just don't know yet. We need to find out."

Tadao blinked, a frown on his face. However, he wiped it away with a smile after a second or two. "How about we keep following the ATV tracks? We might find something else at the end."

Wolf looked off into the distance, pondering it for a moment before nodding. "All right. I guess it's all we can do. But it's getting too dark. Panther, Tadao…go back to our ship and get some flashlights. I'm going to get the search parties to head over this way." He pulled a communicator out of his pocket, and began barking orders into it.

Panther sighed, looking up at the dark night sky with the storm clouds overhead. While calmer than before, the raindrops continued to come down at a steady pace, pelting him on the cheeks and eyes. Every part of his body felt cold and wet, the inside of his boots soggy and squishing. This long night just got longer. Still though, he couldn't do anything except press on. His future with Star Wolf, and possibly his life, depended on them getting that case back now.

The cat turned over to his new traveling companion. Tadao stood there waiting for a command, as still as a statue despite the rain pelting down on his frilly head. He only wore that faded, tattered Venomian military uniform, having refused a poncho so he could draw his machete faster if he needed to. Speaking of…Panther couldn't help but look at that blade. Amazing how something so primitive and crude terrified Panther a lot more than a blaster.

"Shall we go, Panther?" Tadao asked, offering a polite smile.

Even if Tadao seemed eager to please, Panther just didn't feel safe being alone with him. What would Tadao do if he found out they lied to him about the Lylat Wars? But it was either this or face Wolf over his Hyoodin, so Panther reluctantly nodded for them to go. They started their trek back to the drop ship. Panther hoped they'd just go back in silence, but Tadao wanted to talk.

"How long have you been with Star Wolf, Panther?"

The cat's tail twitched at the question. "A few years…" Panther didn't want to say anything more than necessary.

"You know, I'm envious of you." Tadao smiled at Panther, pulling aside a branch to let him through. "How does it feel to work under the greatest pilot in the Venomian military?"

 _Venomian military._ That would be funny at some other time, but it reminded Panther that he walked a delicate tightrope here to keep Tadao in the dark. "It pays quite well… I'm able to get plenty of women and eat at nice cafes."

" _Nani_?" Tadao's face darkened, the slit eye on the side of his head narrowing. "You speak as though the money is all you care about."

Panther tensed up, sensing he'd made a mistake. "Well…uh… We've also done some very great things in the service of..of our emperor." The words came out in stammers, sounding weaker and flabbier than he wanted them to.

Tadao frowned at Panther, scrutinizing him. "What planets does Andross currently hold in Lylat? Last I heard only Corneria itself was left."

Panther felt as though he were getting pushed on thin ice. He didn't know much of anything about Andross and the Venomians, not having signed onto Star Wolf until after the war. He could easily get caught in a lie if Tadao kept digging deeper. Good thing it was dark and raining, or Tadao might get a good look at Panther's nervous face. "We…have about half now, I guess? Venom, Macbeth, Titania, and Zoness."

"Wait…" Tadao stopped, putting a hand on Panther's shoulder. "You're telling me things are worse now? I thought our war machine was invincible…"

Panther did not like the leathery feel of that reptile hand on his shoulder. It felt stiff and cold, like that of a dead man. The cat's mind raced, but being so close to Tadao and the machete made it difficult to think straight. Eventually Panther came up with something he hoped would end the conversation. "Things have gotten worse, but whatever's in the case may turn the tide of the war. We can finish the Cornerians for good if we can just find the case." Gathering his courage, Panther grasped Tadao's shoulders, putting on his best determined look. Eyes narrowed and focused. "The best thing we can do right now is keep searching for it. Now let's hurry up. Wolf's waiting for us."

Tadao's eyes widened in awe. Panther could see the shift in the lizard's emotional state. In Tadao's mind, this was no longer just a walk in the woods to find a case. It was a mission…a vital one that could decide the future of the empire he loved so much. What more motivation did he need?

"I…I didn't know it was that important. I'm terribly sorry!" Tadao stepped back and gave a bow. " _Wakarimasu_ …I'll stop asking questions. _Ikuzo!_ "

Tadao took off at a sprint, Panther surprised by the change in pace. The cat felt relieved but also terrified, like he'd just dodged a bullet. They completed the rest of the trip in record time, hurrying back to the drop ship and then running the rest of the way back to the camp. Panther found himself tired and out of breath by the time they made it back. Tadao still looked in top form, like he could run several more miles with no problem.

Wolf looked somewhat surprised to see them. "That was quick."

"I didn't know how urgent your mission was!" Tadao handed Wolf a flashlight. "Why didn't you tell me how urgent this all is? Panther filled me in on the details."

Still wheezing from the surprise sprint, Panther looked over to see Wolf giving him a weird look. Panther looked at the ground, wondering what Wolf might have to say to him after this was all done.

But for now, Wolf focused on the job at hand. "Okay… Let's hurry up and see where this ATV went."

All of them lit their flashlights, Tadao once again taking the lead. After about twenty more minutes of hiking, the tracks led them into a wide clearing in the trees, with waist high grass covering most of the area. The ATV left flattened grass in its wake, forming a pathway through the vegetation. At the center of the clearing they spotted a wider area with all of the grass pushed downwards. However, the tracks ended here. Panther felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"What is this?!" Wolf snarled, waving his flashlight around. His pointed ears flipped backwards in anger, hardened almost enough to cut. A lump formed in Panther's throat as he watched. If Wolf was angry now, Panther wondered what he would do once he learned about the Hyoodin. It seemed inevitable at this point. Their best lead just went cold. How the hell would they find the case in time now?

Tadao's resolve appeared unbroken, however. The iguana crouched in the flattened grass, running his hand along something on the ground. "I can see different markings here…" He traced his finger along a small trench-like depression in the smashed grass and mud, the marking a few inches deep. "Looks like landing skids. They landed a ship here, took the ATV out of it, drove out to get the case, drove back here, reloaded the ATV, and flew away…"

"Well that's just fantastic!" Wolf fumed, throwing his hands up. "How do we find them now?"

"Wolf… Calm down." Tadao looked up. "You're letting your emotions get to you."

"I don't see how calming down could help right now!" Wolf turned away from Tadao, shouting at the jungle around them. " _You assholes_! Where the hell are you?! Give me back my damn case!"

Tadao shook his head in irritation. "If you don't calm down, you won't see things right in front of you."

"Like what?!" Wolf spun around, purple eye ablaze in fury.

Tadao pointed at the landing skid marks again. "We can still get information from what's here. Everybody leaves traces about who they are. It's just a matter of spotting it. Now…the size of these marks shows that whatever ship they brought here, it was small. Maybe about the size of a truck. I'd imagine it's slow and probably not suitable for long-distance space travel, assuming it's capable of even leaving the atmosphere. They'd have to stop somewhere close by for fuel or transfer to a bigger ship. They may still be in the vicinity…"

Despite being afraid of being close to Tadao before, Panther almost found the iguana's calm, rational matter soothing. It looked like despite being crazy patriotic for Andross, Tadao could be level-headed and logical when he needed to. It probably came from surviving in the jungle for so long, all alone. You either dealt with that somehow or died.

"Even if our mystery case thieves are still on Fortuna," Wolf waved at the clearing around them. "How are we going to figure out where they went? They could be tens of thousands of miles away by now, and the distance is only getting bigger the longer we stand here!"

"Not necessarily." Tadao shook his head. "I never got to explore Fortuna much beyond my cave, but it's still mostly uninhabited right?"

Wolf paused, as the rain dripped down around him. "Yes… There's only a few small settlements here and there. Only places you could refuel around here."

"Okay." Tadao nodded. "It's been about eight or nine hours since you went down, right? What if you dispatched some ships to ask around nearby settlements for our case thieves? I'd think outsiders would stand out here, with how out of the way this planet is."

Wolf blinked, going over the idea in his head. "Well…I guess it's worth a try." He didn't sound like he believed it would help though.

Tadao still kept that polite smile on regardless.

The mention of settlements reminded Panther of something. "Didn't Andrew used to have a base somewhere close by here too?"

Tadao looked over towards Panther, confused. "I thought you said he was killed?"

"Oh!" Panther backed up, catching his error. "Well…he got promoted out of our unit, then he built the base, and all that was before he died, so…yeah…"

Wolf glared at Panther, obviously wanting to tongue lash him but also not wanting to raise Tadao's suspicions. Panther looked away again, closing his eyes in embarrassment.

Wolf scanned the clearing one more time with his flashlight, before shaking his head and looking defeated. "I don't think there's much more me and Panther can do down here," he said. "Tadao, when the search teams make it here, could you lead them? You've been a big help so far."

" _Hai, Okami-san._ " Tadao grinned, saluting. "This is the most excitement I've had ever since I got down here. All of my friends will be so jealous when they find out I helped the famous Wolf O'Donnell finish a mission!" The iguana laughed at that, Wolf sharing a nervous chuckle.

Panther almost felt bad about them lying to Tadao, but held his tongue.

Wolf gave Tadao a hearty pat on the shoulder. "All right, we're going back to the _Retribution_ to see how Leon's doing. Good luck with your search."

"You too Wolf! _Ganbatte!_ "

As they started their hike back to the drop ship, Panther thought he would feel relieved to be leaving Tadao behind and headed back to the _Retribution_. Instead, it filled him with dread. Their best lead had gone cold, leaving Panther with little to do to fix the mess he created. The rain continued to pound on their heads, yet Panther didn't even notice anymore. The walk through the jungle had a dreamlike quality, like he wasn't actually awake. It didn't help he really was tired, exhausted after a long day of hunting for Wolf and then a long night in the jungle. Even ignoring that, how could he keep his balance, with his life turning upside down? Earlier today he'd been on top of the world, getting to see his precious Hyoodin and showing it to Giichi. But now his entire future appeared to be in jeopardy. Why didn't he just wait to buy an expensive car? Why? Why'd he been so goddamn stupid?

"Are you doing all right, Panther?" Wolf asked.

The fur on Panther's back stood up at that question. "Why…you ask?"

"Well, you're just walking like you're drunk or something."

Panther made an effort to correct his stride. "It's been a long day, I guess."

"Amen to that," Wolf nodded. "How'd it all go so bad, so fast?"

 _Oh Wolf…if only you knew about my situation…_

They arrived back at the drop ship, Wolf taking the pilot controls while Panther strapped into the passenger seat. Another drop ship landed nearby, releasing a team of Star Wolf grunts into the forest.

That gave Panther a spot of hope. "You think the search team will find anything?"

"I doubt it." Wolf sighed, as he punched buttons and checked the readouts. "Mostly I just did that to keep Tadao occupied, so he won't want to come back to the _Retribution_."

"Wha…really?" Panther could feel the color draining from his face.

"Yeah…" Wolf frowned, glancing over at Panther. "Speaking of Tadao, you almost blew it back there."

"What?"

"Andrew. Tadao's getting suspicious of the things we're telling him."

"Sorry…" Panther hoped Wolf wouldn't ask about-

"You didn't say anything else to him, did you?" The engines began to spool up on their drop ship.

 _Damn it…_ Panther pursed his lips. "Uh…"

Wolf gritting his teeth. "Oh, don't tell me you told him more than that."

"Uh…I'm afraid so." The cat spoke in a whisper, afraid to speak up.

Wolf rolled his eyes, as he guided the ship up into the sky. "Wonderful… What did you say?"

"Andross is losing the war and we really need what's in the case to win it."

"Why the hell did you have to spin a tale like that?" They left the cloud cover behind, heading off into the starry sky. "It's gonna get harder to keep him under control the more he learns things. Tadao may not want to help us anymore if he finds out he's being played. He might even get violent. We really can't afford that right now."

Panther just looked out the window as the atmosphere gave way to space.

Wolf sighed. "Anyway, I told the search team to just help him find the case. No answering his questions about the Lylat Wars or anything else." They approached Genma, Fortuna's moon. "I'm gonna go check on Leon's progress once we get back. I hope he's doing better than we are…"

 **Music – Resident Evil Remake – Vacant Room**

 _A couple hours earlier…_

Leon hurried down the corridors of the _Retribution_ , entering the crew quarters section. Everyone who saw the chameleon gave him a wide berth, not wanting to get on his bad side. Leon didn't notice though, his mind focused on the task ahead.

Harry Hutch the husky…Franco Fawkes the jackal. Alliterative names… Now that he thought about it, the names did sound awful fake. Leon cursed himself for not catching onto that earlier. Both of them claimed to be ex-Cornerian soldiers turned mercenaries, disgruntled with their home planet. It was how their military couldn't protect Corneria against anything, and always needed Star Fox's help. They said they felt worthless and underpaid as a result. They also said they had intimate knowledge of the inside of the Corneria City base, having worked there before. The chameleon did background research of all this, and it appeared to check out. Leon inspected some leaked Cornerian personnel files that Star Wolf's cyber unit managed to acquire. Could the records have been planted for them to find? Whoever they worked for, Leon didn't think Harry and Franco were Cornerian spies. If they were, why let Wolf take that case out of the base? Hell, why not just lead Wolf into a trap to capture him?

In any case, Leon soon arrived at the pair's cabin, opening it up with his master keycard. As the door slid aside, he swept his eyes across the room. Leon put on a small smirk. "Hmm…interesting."

Both sides of the two-man cabin matched, with each having a desk, a bunk, a set of drawers, and a small closet, all done in a cheap gray metal. The alloy shone with a glossy sheen, the fluorescent ceiling light reflecting back at him from multiple angles. Only the most stubborn dents and scratches remained. Crisp, clean, neatly-folded sheets covered the beds, with spare blankets sitting on top. Leon opened Harry's closet. All of the clothes looked like they'd just been washed and hung up, none of the hangars or articles askew. Leon had never seen such a clean room on this ship.

The chameleon nodded as he took in the surroundings. Everything looked far too perfect, especially for the average crew member on the _Retribution_. The two cleaned out their room beforehand to cover their tracks. But no one was perfect, and Leon intended to go over this room with a fine-toothed comb. Somehow, someway, he would find clues about who Harry and Franco really were, and who their friends were. Harry and Franco cheated him out of a fun interrogation session by dying, so Leon supposed their friends would have to pay him back double when he found them.

Setting to work, Leon yanked open the drawers on Harry's desk and rifled through them. But except for office supplies and other knickknacks, the desk turned up nothing of interest. No computers, no electronic storage, no personal papers, nothing. Leon checked the desk on Franco's side as well. Same thing. Leon nodded with respect. They hadn't missed anything important…not yet anyway. He went to one of the closets, snatching open the door. Articles of clothing got flung onto the floor. Searching through the pockets of the scattered garments, Leon found little else but lint, some gum, and some more spare coins. Perhaps he could learn Harry's and Franco's planet of origin by examining the currency, but he'd worry about analyzing the random objects later. Under Harry's bed came next. Leon dragged out a number of small plastic boxes, going through each of them in turn. Comic books, erotic magazines, a chocolate stash long past its expiration date…

Leon sighed. Nothing identifying about Harry and Franco's true past had turned up yet. He went back over Franco's side of the room next, tearing it apart as well. But that only yielded more miscellaneous objects of little interest. All the obvious places were out now, leaving only nooks and crannies. The chameleon moved the furniture around as best as he could, trying to see if he could find something in one of the cracks. However, not much turned up besides dust bunnies and crumbs of old food.

Flipping over the mattress on Franco's bed, Leon's eyes lit up. "Hello…what's this?"

Someone had wedged a photograph into the bed springs. Leon pried the picture free, bringing it into better light. Three canines stood in a row, all of them dressed in winter camouflage uniforms and wielding kinetic assault rifles. Snowflakes fell past them in the foreground, their boots partially buried in the white. A white mountain range rose above them in the background. The canines on the left and right appeared to be Harry and Franco respectively, albeit looking a few years younger.

Leon didn't recognize the one in the middle though. White fur, golden eyes, fluffy feather duster tail swinging in the wind, and triangular, pointed ears. The eye and fur color made for an eerie contrast. However, Leon couldn't distinguish an exact species of canine. Perhaps Wolf could help figure that out, being a canine himself. Leon would show him the picture later. Whoever he was, this mystery canine didn't look like someone to mess with. Leon felt those golden eyes staring right through him.

Were there any identifying marks on the three's uniforms though? A shoulder patch on Harry's uniform stood out. It looked like a bear's face, the mouth open and roaring. Words framed the patch, but Leon couldn't read them with his naked eye. The photographer took the picture from too far away. Leon flipped over the photograph to see if a date or names were written there, but found the back side blank.

Sighing, Leon continued his search. The next half hour flew by as he scoured the room, but not much else turned up after the picture. Leon crossed his arms, tapping his foot as he looked at the pile of junk he made on the floor. He thought about examining all the items in detail, to put together a picture of Harry and Franco's past from the pieces. Yet the photograph still bothered him, especially that white canine in the middle. Could there be something in Star Wolf's databases on him? With help from Star Wolf's computer techs, Leon kept an extensive data warehouse pertaining to various persons of interest, from clients, to enemies, to informants… He found the idea of research too intriguing to resist, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Leon rushed back to his own cabin to begin. Within minutes, he reached his door, stepping into a small cabin with a spartan, metallic interior. It didn't look very different from Franco's and Harry's cabin. Wolf sometimes told Leon to move into a larger, more luxurious cabin like his and Panther's, but the chameleon always rejected the idea. For the most part, Leon just found luxuries like bigger rooms and more stuff to be a distraction. He preferred experiences to possessions, like the thrill of hunting an assassination target or interrogating in his own _special_ way. So consequently Leon mostly made do with only what he considered essentials.

However, his fast computer linkup with the Retribution's systems was one of the few luxuries he permitted. Leon slid into the chair in front of the monitor. After keying in his password, he drew up a database program. Leon typed so fast his fingers looked like blurs, query code appearing on the screen at a breakneck pace. He wanted to check Star Wolf's personnel tables on Harry and Franco one more time.

Finishing up, he punched the F5 key to run the query…and no results came back. Leon raised an eyebrow. Maybe he'd made a typo? Leon double-checked himself, and pressed F5 again. No results. Curious, Leon decided to rewrite the query to pull back all records, regardless of who was on them. Still no results. Something was not right here. Frowning, Leon called up a video conferencing program on his machine. When the contacts list popped up, the chameleon clicked on the name 'Suneel Kombethula.'

A live video image popped up, showing a brown porcupine seated at a terminal in a computer room elsewhere in the _Retribution_. Suneel wore wire-frame glasses, the lenses making his eyes look bigger than they should have been. In contrast to most crew members of Star Wolf, he wore a blue button-down dress shirt with a tie, like he worked in a standard IT shop at some mega corp. Despite the professional-looking appearance, right now the porcupine's body sagged forward, the eyes shut behind the lenses.

"Suneel…Suneel!" Leon called out.

Suneel stirred, his quills waving all over the place as he rose from his unplanned nap. Blinking, he looked over at the web camera over his monitor. His jaw dropped, seeing Leon. Immediately the porcupine straightened back up again, doing his best to look alert and attentive despite the sudden waking up. However, Leon still noticed a conspicuous drool stain down the front of the dress shirt.

"Oh, Leon!" Suneel gave a nervous laugh. "Good to see you again! Is there something I can do for you?" While appearing cheerful, the porcupine's eyes darted about, a bead of sweat running down the frame of his glasses.

Normally he'd berate Suneel for sleeping on the job, but Leon didn't have time for that right now. "Something is wrong with the personnel database. Get a backup going."

"I understand." Suneel beamed a forced smile. "I will get going on it right away and let you know when it's done!" Suneel turned back to his monitor and began typing away.

Leon killed the video feed without bothering to say goodbye, although he figured Suneel probably didn't mind that. While he waited, the chameleon slipped the photograph he found into a scanner next to his machine. After digitizing the picture, he opened up a photo-editing program, blowing up the picture so it filled the entire screen. Leon gave the image a closer look, examining every detail he could spot. The snowy mountains suggested they could be on Fichina somewhere, although it could be a whole other planet in a different system for all he knew. If he could identify the mountain range, he could figure out the planet.

Also, Leon didn't recognize those uniforms from any official military forces in Lylat. The matching set of BDUs implied they belonged to _some_ sort of organization, be it a PMC or a military outside the system. Leon took a closer look at the patch on Harry's shoulder, now that he could see better with the zoom. But the patch didn't face the camera directly, so the letters on the left appeared squished and illegible compared to the letters on the right. He could only read:

 __AR_

 __INEL_

The bullet-based firearms got his attention too. Nowadays, people only used kinetic weapons in special circumstances. Either they just couldn't afford blasters, or the environment was too inhospitable to keep blasters well maintained. Although kinetic weapons did have uses when it came to stealth. Unlike blasters, you could suppress them, and they typically didn't create a visible projectile when fired. In any case, the weapons pictured could be useful in narrowing down the potential outfits Harry and Franco belonged to as well…

The cabin door slid open behind Leon. Only two people in Star Wolf were allowed to enter his room unannounced, and only one of those paid regular visits, so he didn't need to look. "You're back now, Wolf?"

"Sure am…" Wolf strode into the room, sitting down on Leon's bed.

Leon turned to face him. "You find anything down there on Fortuna?"

Wolf looked grim. "Bad news I'm afraid. Someone down there took our case."

Leon blinked a few times. He wasn't surprised by the news, especially with the suspicious state of Harry's and Franco's cabin. Wolf filled Leon in on his findings, between spotting the ATV trail, discovering the case's handle at the encampment, and finding the trail dead ended at a spot where a small aircraft appeared to have launched.

"Sounds like we're up a creek right now…" Leon said.

"That's the polite way of putting it," Wolf rolled his eye, his pointed ears drooping. The lupine turned his attention to the photograph on the screen. "So what's this?"

Leon moved aside to give Wolf a better view. "I found this in Harry and Franco's room."

"I can see that's Harry and Franco there…assuming those are their real names. Who's the third guy?"

"I don't know yet." Leon looked at the white canine again. "I don't even know what kind of canine he is. What do you think?"

"Umm…" Wolf tilted his head, looking puzzled by the picture. Even he seemed to struggle with it. "I…I don't know either. I was going to say wolf at first, but the tail, ears, and muzzle look wrong. The tail is too long and fluffy, more like a fox's. The muzzle is too small. And he looks a bit small for a wolf too. It's like he's a mix of a bunch of different canines…" Wolf turned back to Leon. "Did you find any other things like this in Harry's and Franco's room?"

"No," Leon shook his head. "They cleaned their room out. All of their papers, computers, and things are gone."

Wolf's eye widened at the mention of that. "What?"

Leon nodded. "That's right."

"I met Franco and Harry in their cabin right before we left for Corneria." Wolf leaned closer to the picture, placing a hand on the bottom of his muzzle and stroking it. "They definitely still had all their papers and computers around then. Someone cleaned up after we left…"

"So we really _do_ have spies on board the ship? They didn't clean it themselves?" Leon spun around, furiously typing away at something on the screen, the windows and programs changing on the program at breakneck speed. Wolf found himself dizzy just trying to keep up with all of the information flying across the monitor. After a few minutes Leon pulled up a video surveillance program, allowing access to cameras all over the ship. He selected the camera in the hall outside Harry's and Franco's cabin.

"All right…" Leon said, clicking around with the mouse. "We'll just review the footage from the hallway from after you left for Corneria. Whoever went into the room to get their stuff will show up on video."

Leon chose the appropriate time in the archives. But instead of seeing a hallway, "[ NO SIGNAL ]" appeared on the screen in red text, against a black background.

"What now?" Wolf narrowed his eyes, looking at Leon.

"Something was wrong with the video feed then…" Leon skipped around on the timeline, hoping to find actual footage. But no matter where he checked, the camera curiously appeared to have been offline ever since Wolf left with Harry and Franco to go to Corneria.

"Shit…" Wolf shook his head. "Whoever this mystery guy is…he's good. I wonder if it's that white guy in the picture."

"I guess we'll find out," Leon said. "I was working with our personnel database just now. But there was a problem, so I've got Suneel working on a backup and—"

"Who's Suneel?"

"Oh…just someone in our cyber unit. He is good at what he does…but from what I understand he got caught changing grades for classmates back in his college days, charging five hundred credits a class. That blackballed him from a legit career in computer work, so he ended up with us. Let's go check on him now."

Leon brought the video conferencing program back up, clicking on Suneel's name.

The porcupine's bespectacled face appeared on camera again. He glanced over at the camera, huge eyes going wide at the sight of both Leon _and_ Wolf now.

"Suneel, what is your progress?" Leon asked.

"I am almost there." Suneel smiled again. It seemed to be his default way of hiding sheer terror. "Try typing in a query on your machine now and let me know how it goes."

Leon zapped back over to the database program, rapidly typing in a query. He pressed F5, but all he got was a box with an error message.

 _Table is encrypted. Please speak to your database administrator for access._

"Whaaaaat?" Leon rapid-fire typed some more.

Suneel's face fell for a moment at Leon's voice, although he put on a small smile again to keep up the façade.

"Suneel…why is this table encrypted?" Leon asked, glaring at the camera.

"Ah…ah…" Suneel's mouth hung open, as he looked around his desk, avoiding staring back at his web cam.

"Suneel!" Leon shouted. "Answer me!"

"Uh…well…" The porcupine raised up a finger, turning towards his monitor as he started typing again. "Let…let me go and check the backups. Hold on."

A few minutes passed by as the clacking of keys came over Leon's speakers, Suneel not saying anything as he worked. More beads of sweat rolled down the side of his glasses, the silence feeling deafening for all around. All of a sudden, Suneel's jaw dropped. "No…no no. That's not right!"

"What's wrong?" Wolf growled.

"Uhhh…. The…the backups. They're…encrypted. I just see a mess of text when I open them."

"So unencrypt them?" Wolf suggested, sounding unsure about that. He didn't know much of anything about computers.

Suneel gulped at the suggestion. "Wolf…this is STB encryption with a 65536-bit key."

The lupine rolled his eyes. "In plain Lylatian, please."

"Well….I _could_ try to unencrypt it—"

Wolf shrugged, waving a hand. "So do it."

"Wolf, it's not that simple. In _theory_ the encryption could be cracked, but—"

"But what?" Wolf narrowed his eyes, getting impatient with all this.

"65536-bit is a _ridiculously_ big key. Even if I used the computing power of _every_ machine on the _Retribution_ to work on finding the key, it would take over a century to crack. We would be long dead before it cracked the code. If we had kids, our _great grandchildren_ would be dead before the code was cracked. We're never getting our data back without whatever STB key was used to do this."

Leon cast a glare over at the porcupine. "Suneel…" he hissed. "It's your job to make sure things like this don't happen."

The porcupine's false smile vanished at last, replaced by abject terror.

"I don't have time to deal with you right now…" The chameleon pointed at the video monitor. "But we're going to talk about it later. I assure you of that."

The quills all over Suneel's body expanded, making him look like a terrified, quivering pincushion as Leon stared him down.

"Just fix what you can for now. Find out how this happened. Don't call me back until you've got good news." And then Leon cut the feed, shaking his head and glancing over at Wolf.

Meanwhile, Wolf wondered if he felt worse than Suneel right now, the weight of all the day's problems feeling like it was slowly crushing him into a pancake. He kept seeing a disappointed, angry Sable in the back of his head, the thought tearing away at his sanity. Regardless, Wolf did his best to stay focused on the problems at hand. "Okay then…someone's in our computers and breaking shit now. Just great. Well…I guess all of this answers our questions about having spies on the ship… Let's hope they haven't gotten to anything el-" As if on cue, Wolf's communicator rang. He rolled his eyes, snatching the device up. "Okay…who's this and what the hell do you want?"

"Oh…I'm sorry," the voice apologized on the other end. "Wolf, it's uh…it's Captain Jamal on the bridge. There's something I thought you'd want to know about."

Wolf grumbled under his breath. "What is it?"

"Well… Remember what you said about keeping ship-to-ship communications to a minimum while we're here?" Jamal gulped. "This may just be a computer glitch, but my communications officer reported that his machine sent out a message somewhere all on its own. It wasn't to any of our own ships."

Wolf's face darkened. "So what the hell was in the message? Who'd it get sent to?"

"W-we don't know…" Jamal stammered. "The communications log got wiped right after it was sent. The tech didn't get a chance to look at it."

Wolf didn't like the sound of that, especially with the other computer problems they were starting to have. He sighed, rubbing a hand on his forehead. "Okay Jamal. Let me know if there's any other problems." And Wolf cut the line, continuing to rub his forehead. "Goddamn…this just keeps getting worse and worse and worse…"

Leon raised an eyebrow. "Why would somebody want to send a communication like that and then wipe the log? Who'd they send the message to?"

"I don't know Leon." Wolf looked up, staring as though he were trying to look through the walls. "But with everything else that's happening, I'd say it's bad news for us…"

* * *

 _A/N: My apologies for taking so long getting out a new chapter on Hazardous Contents. Writing_ Shoot the Tubes _took a lot out of me, and I didn't feel like writing for a couple weeks after that._

 _You know, it also doesn't help we're close to the point where I gave up on my beta. The reason is I had a lot of trouble deciding how I wanted this particular part of the story to go. Originally, I wanted to make this part more mystery-like, and just dwell on the Sherlock Holmes-type stuff for a while. However...I thought this would slow the story down too much, plus I realized during the beta I didn't know how to write mysteries XD So I think this chapter is the closest we'll get to my original idea. Hope everyone's OK with that._

 _Also, reaching the end of my beta is a pretty important milestone for me. I'm excited to finally be conquering this fear of mine about this part of the story._

 _EDIT: Elarix made some suggestions about things I should change in this chapter, particularly Leon's skill level with computers. In the old draft, Suneel was nowhere to be seen and Leon did all the computer work on his own. Both Elarix and I agreed that Leon probably wouldn't be this skilled with computers, so I brought Suneel back in. I was actually thinking of having Suneel in the chapter before I posted it, but I thought his presence might ruin the tense mood I wanted to set. However, I'm not worried about that aspect of the story anymore, now that I've got this new draft done._


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: 2018/1/15 – I've given this chapter a rewrite, plus a retcon to the reason Krystal isn't with Star Fox anymore. Reviews before this date will not reflect the new chapter._

 **Chapter 8**

Fox and Fara had spoken only a few times since he dropped out of the Cornerian Flight Academy. She congratulated him after he won the Lylat Wars for Corneria, and they called each other on their birthdays every now and then, but that was it. When Peppy let her tag along on this mission, Fox had worried about what it might be like to work with her after all these years. Now though, those worries seemed silly.

He strode down the corridors of the _Great Fox II_ , grinning ear to ear as Fara walked beside him. To pass the time on the way to Fortuna, he'd decided to give her a tour. His ship rarely got visitors anymore, so he relished every moment of it. With enthusiasm he told her everything about his ship, sometimes with her mentioning some little thing that she knew. It was a decommissioned CDF carrier after all, so she recognized the basic layout and where the critical systems were located. Despite familiarity she took it all in like it was the most amazing thing in the galaxy, warming his heart. Why did he think it'd be awkward having an ex aboard his ship again?

When they got bored talking about the carrier, they changed to trading stories from their school days. A ski trip to the snowy mountains north of Corneria City, a run down to the beach, walking in the park… There was also going to the movies at the big multiplex downtown, even though their tastes in movies didn't match; Fara would drag Fox into her romantic comedies by the scruff of his neck while she texted through his superhero and action movies.

While the longing in his heart for Krystal persisted, Fox still enjoyed the walk down memory lane with Fara. She'd become an old friend now instead of an old girlfriend, and that suited him fine.

"And here's Hangar 1!" He waved his hands towards a set of doors like he was a game show host. The vulpine wondered if he was being too enthusiastic, but with her smile she didn't seem to mind.

Fox punched the button next to the door, revealing almost complete darkness. They stepped inside the large echoing chamber, footsteps echoing back at them. Off to one side, a carpet of stars was visible through the open port of the docking bay, the invisible force field keeping the hangar pressurized. He flipped on a few switches, bathing them in a small oasis of light.

As his eyes adjusted he saw four fighters in large storage racks along the back wall, visible in the dim light. Three of them were Arwings decked out in the traditional white and blue Star Fox color scheme, while Fara's own Cornerian fighter sat in the far right slot, looking out of place with its green and purple stripes. In a nearby alcove the Landmaster tank rested in shadow, its long gun barrel very prominent.

Fara looked over at the Arwings, smiling. "I feel like I'm in a parallel universe right now."

"What?" Fox raised an eyebrow, turning to look at her.

"Well, think about it." She grinned, tail dancing behind her. "Back in the academy, you wanted to follow in your dad's footsteps. I wanted to go into the military. We went our separate ways, but I've always wondered what could have been if I stuck with you. Joined Star Fox, you know. This is kind of like that, even if it's only for a short time."

 _Even if it's only for a short time._ Fox smiled back, but that reminded him of how this was a temporary arrangement. He didn't think they'd go back to dating or anything, but even so the past few months had been lonely for him without Krystal around. Seeing another friendly, familiar face on the ship did wonders for his mood, and he'd be sad about losing the company.

"Dad would have been heartbroken if I actually did this." Fox leaned against a nearby stack of cargo pallets. "But sometimes I wonder how things would have gone if I'd stuck with you and gone into the military."

Fara chuckled, shaking her head. "Back then, I would have loved it so much if you did that. But you made the right choice."

"Really?" Fox raised an eyebrow. "What, I'm not good enough for you?" He grinned, his tone sarcastic.

"Oh no, it's not that." Fara shook her head, liking him keeping the mood light. "We wouldn't have won the Lylat Wars without Star Fox around. See, I was just a rookie back then, so they kept me far away from the front lines. I didn't get to see much action outside of defending Corneria. The same thing would have probably happened to you too. You would have never gotten the chance to go after Andross and he would have won."

He never thought of it that way. Amazing what small choices could have on the outcome of something much bigger down the line.

"I remember how you felt about the whole training routine back in the academy." Fara chuckled.

Fox winced. Every morning, the academy pulled them out of bed at 0500 and made them all run five miles, followed up by a regimen of pushups and sit-ups before breakfast. He complained about it non-stop whenever his superiors were out of earshot. It was not something he missed about his younger days. Plus…

"I didn't get along too well with the drill instructors, did I?"

"Yup." Fara giggled. "They knew your name and that sure didn't help. After all, you were…" She made a whooshing sound as she put on a dramatic pose. "…the son of the great James McCloud!"

Fox's face screwed up in a grimace. Because of his dad's illustrious past in the Cornerian military the instructors singled him out a lot, making him do extra pushups and laps in front of the other cadets. Her dramatic pose and tone of voice copied the way they mocked him about his old man.

"Hey though." Fara leaned next to him. "You took on all the extra crap they dished out on you, so that was pretty cool. Everyone thought you were amazing you didn't let them get to you."

Fox smirked. "Well, I'm glad I got away from all that, but being a merc's not all stardust and rainbow nebulas." His smile faded, remembering all the troubles hanging over his head right now. "You're not really your own boss, you've got lots and lots of bosses… your clients."

"Oh?" Fara blinked, looking surprised. "I never thought of it that way."

"Yup." He nodded. "Plus you have to take care of all your own expenses too. Times are pretty tough for mercenaries right now. Not much work to go around. I've got to cut back where I can." He pointed to their ships lined against the wall. "Look at your fighter, then look back at the Arwings and the Landmaster."

Fara turned to follow Fox's finger, and her eyes lit with realization. Her Cornerian fighter looked fresh, like it came straight out of the factory. In contrast, the Arwings and the Landmaster bore the scars of many past battles, between dents, scratches, and obvious replacement armor panels. Most of the replacement panels didn't match the original material or color of the stock metal.

"The military would never let fighters get in that condition, not if they could help it." She looked pained as she observed the damage. "I didn't notice till you pointed it out."

"They may look bad, but they all still run great." Fox grinned at her. "Slippy's a genius mechanic. We don't have near the budget Corneria does, but he makes up big time for it with creativity. You could stick him in a junkyard, tell him to build an Arwing engine and warp drive from scratch, and he'd just say 'when do you need it?' I'm so glad he's stuck with me this long. I'd have been out of business long ago without him."

"I hope Slippy's doing okay." Fara stared off towards the tapestry of stars outside the hangar's force field, as if trying to look back to Corneria. "I saw what state Beltino was in, and how Slippy took it."

"I'm worried about him too." Fox sighed, remembering the reason they were here right now. He shook his head. "I trusted Wolf. He helped us save the galaxy from the Aparoids, and this is his thanks, you know? Shooting Slippy's dad and attacking the Corneria City base?"

Fara's mouth pursed. "He's just a despicable pirate. What do you expect?" A snarl almost came out of her mouth. "All he cares about is himself and making a quick buck. He only helped you because your goals lined up at the time."

Fox's ears folded back. He wouldn't admit this to Fara but instead of anger he felt disappointment about Wolf going back to his old ways. He saved Fox's life multiple times throughout the Aparoid invasion, and the Aparoid Queen would have won if he hadn't helped in the final battle. The lupine claimed he saved Fox only because he wanted to have a real fight later, to truly determine who the better pilot was. But was that the truth? Or was Wolf lying so he wouldn't look like he was getting soft? Fox didn't know what to think, but somehow he felt there was more to Wolf's motivations than mere piracy and their rivalry. Something changed him after the Lylat Wars. What though? Fox wished he knew.

"Whatever Wolf did before, we have to get the case back regardless," Fox said, pushing his musings away. "There's one more place on the ship I wanted to show you. Want to go take a look?"

Fara nodded. "Okay, sure."

After leaving the hangar and heading down some more halls, they stopped in front of a double metallic door. Fox punched the button nearby. "So in here we've got our common room…"

The doors whooshed aside, revealing a large and disorderly space. A big screen TV occupied one of the walls. It looked sleek and modern, not even an inch thick and yet occupying a huge amount of wall space. Wall-mounted speakers flanked the unit, numerous game systems and video players filling a stand underneath it. In contrast, old furniture huddled around the television, including an old navy blue couch and some recliners. Holes and tears covered all the pieces, roughly patched over with amateur sewing and duct tape. Wooden end tables and a coffee table matched the look of the seats, all of them covered with scratches and a dull finish.

"That's definitely a guy thing," Fara laughed, ribbing Fox in the side. "The entertainment center's always the first priority, huh?"

"Well, it gets awful lonely wandering around space for weeks or months at a time you know." He grinned, liking her teasing. "If we didn't have all of that there, we'd go stir crazy."

They walked past the living area, and over to the galley and dining area. The cabinets, island, and table appeared to have been gleaming white when new, but time stained them a dingy gray and covered the cheap plastic material with scrapes, scuffs, and baked-in stains. Fara glanced inside the fridge, finding little there besides a twelve pack of soda, some alcoholic drinks, and a few restaurant-sized jugs of ketchup and mayonnaise.

"This is all you've got for food?" Fara frowned, closing the door. "Where's your fresh stuff?"

"We can't afford much of it. Instead we have to rely on this." Fox opened the pantry's door, showing the inside packed from top to bottom with canned goods, sacks of beans, instant noodles, and various other grain products. Anything really that could be bought cheaply in bulk and last a long time. "I've been living off of this stuff ever since the first _Great Fox_ got destroyed."

"Oh goodness, you even have to cut back on food?" Fara's eyes widened in sympathy. "It's a good thing Peppy found some work for you, huh?"

"Yeah, but…" He closed the pantry door, walking over to her with a smile. "It's great having you here though. I'll be sad when it's time for you to leave again." He could feel a deep longing in those words, the weight of them heavy on his mind.

Fara seemed to notice Fox's tone, her ears perking up at the sound of his voice. That hadn't come out the way he wanted it to! His expression changed to mirror hers.

"Whoa, I'm sorry!" He held up his hands. "I didn't mean to say it that way!"

"Wha?" Fara tilted her head. "What are you talking about?"

 _Oh crap, she thinks I want to date her again!_ His heart pounded, his breath coming back in short gasps. He rubbed a hand on the back of his head, looking away.

"Are you okay?" She walked behind him, Fox sensing she was about to reach out to him. "Ha, you know, I remember you being this awkward when we dated. You remember, right?"

She added on a little laugh, which did _not_ soothe his worries at all. This was _not_ what he wanted to be reminded of right now. Krystal's spectre beckoned to him before he could close that line of thought.

She paused for a moment, seeming to realize she'd said something wrong. "Hey, are you okay Fox?"

A grim look crossed over the vulpine's face. He couldn't speak for a few seconds, looking away and waving off the question. "It's nothing, Fara." His fists clenched together.

She took a few steps closer to offer comfort. Ironically, that made him even more uncomfortable than he already was. He crossed his arms together, as if to close her out.

"Fox?" Fara put a hand on his shoulder.

Her touch shot through his body like an electric pulse, causing his tail to jump upwards. He grit his teeth, cursing himself for the little involuntary reaction.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Fox went quiet, looking at Fara, worried about how he was staying quiet. Should he tell her? As much as he wanted to keep his thoughts about Krystal to himself, the rest of the trip might be awkward if he brushed this off. He figured she might guess what was upsetting him before long anyway. She hadn't asked about Krystal yet, but he sensed it was on her mind.

"You know how I said I used to get nervous about you?" Fox took a deep breath, looking at the floor as he gathered himself up. "Krystal said that too."

"Her?"

He nodded, closing his eyes.

"Do you mind if I ask something?"

Fox knew where this was going. He didn't feel comfortable talking about this, although he supposed avoiding the topic would be like ignoring the elephant in the room. "Okay." Better they get it out of the way now.

"The news made a pretty big deal about you and Krystal after the Aparoids were defeated."

Fox remembered all too well. _Everyone_ asked about when they were going to get married, between his friends, the media, and random passerby on the street. It was bad enough when Tricky asked about it on Sauria.

"Well…" Fara looked around the room. "I noticed Krystal's not here, and I thought it would be impolite to ask about it. That's why I didn't bring it up until now."

 _Krystal's not here._ Turning away from Fara, he closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over them. Leaning against the kitchen island, his other hand grasped around the edge of the counter, he said, "She left."

Fara's ears jumped up. "You broke up?"

"Not exactly." Fox crossed his arms, looking at the floor.

Fara tilted her head. "Not exactly? What does that mean?"

"It's a little complicated." He shook his head. "I've had a long time to think about it." He forced a smile on her though, but it felt as insincere as his following words. "Uh, we don't have to talk about it though, I'm fine."

"No... You're not." She put a hand on Fox's muzzle, rotating it to face her. "Look, there's no need to bottle yourself up like this, just because I'm here."

"I'm not trying to bottle myself u—"

"I've seen you do this before, back in the academy. Whenever something really hurt your feelings, you always tried to hide it. You'd push everyone else away and disappear for a while."

Fox glanced away from her. She was right, now that he thought about it. In fact, he acted like that after Fara herself broke up with him. He hid in his dorm room for the better part of a week after it happened, refusing to talk to anyone and only coming out when he needed to eat.

"I'm just…" Fara sighed. "You look really upset about Krystal, and it doesn't look like it's doing you any good to keep it all to yourself." She put an arm around his neck and shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it some?"

Tears hung on the edge of Fox's eyes as he looked back at Fara. What _did_ he have to gain keeping all this heartbreak buried deep inside himself? It didn't make him feel any better, and he didn't have anything to lose by talking to her. Maybe it was time to try opening up to someone else about this. "Okay…" He wiped his tears away. "I guess I'd like to talk about it. But…maybe we should do this somewhere more private?"

Fara gave a gentle nod, understanding his concern.

Fox led her out of the common room and over to the dormitory section of the ship, the pair of them entering Fox's cabin. Everyone noticed one thing right off the bat about his room: photographs. The walls overflowed with pictures from past chapters of his life. A prominent black and white photo covered most of the back wall, showing twelve-year-old Fox, his mother Vixy, and his father James. They stood in front of a spaceship's window, showing the original _Great Fox_ under construction at Space Dynamics' orbital shipyards behind them. Another showed the Star Fox team after they defeated Andross in the Lylat Wars, waving to the cheering crowds from the back of a convertible in a victory parade, confetti and streamers flying all around them.

But tonight, his eyes focused on one particular photograph on the nightstand. The framed picture showed him and Krystal on Sauria, dressed in outdoor gear and hauling large rucksacks, massive smiles on both of their faces. She was giving him a huge hug from behind, rubbing his white tuft of hair askew with a free hand. Fox looked sheepish and embarrassed but he still grinned all the same. A large jungle spread out behind them, High Top dinosaurs munching on the leaves of the tallest trees with their long necks. The two foxes took a little vacation there after defeating the Aparoids. It happened a year ago now, but to him it could have been another lifetime at this point.

He turned to look at Fara, noticing her eyes focused on the picture as well.

"You two look so happy there…" She glanced over at Fox, taking a seat at the desk while he sat nearby on his bed. "What happened?"

"Well…" Fox frowned, looking at the floor with clasped hands. He couldn't speak for a few moments. Fara let him gather his thoughts, which he much appreciated. "You know the story behind her homeworld right?"

"Cerinia?" Fara looked at the picture of them again. "I don't know a lot, other than it's destroyed now."

He nodded. "It only happened a couple years ago. I knew she was still hurting about that, as much as she tried to hide it…"

* * *

 _Several months earlier…_

Fox crouched underneath his Arwing, a panel open in front of him. Something seemed to be wrong with the portside laser cannon and he was inspecting the inner mechanics of it. Normally that duty would have fallen to Slippy, but the toad was busy with something else and Fox decided he'd try to fix it himself. Alone in the massive Hangar 1, every sound bounced back to him multiple times over. He dropped a wrench to the metal floor, but the sound was magnified into something that sounded more like a church bell clanging. Ears turning back in annoyance, he picked it back up.

A set of soft footfalls approached, a light sniffling heard over the top of them. Fox's ears rotated towards the sound, as he moved out from under the ship. Krystal walked towards him, rubbing a finger underneath one of her teary eyes. Usually she put on a smile whenever he was around, but he understood why she would cry like this every once in a while.

Fox gave her a warm smile as she approached, holding his hands out. Normally she'd fall right into them, but this time she hesitated. Seeing him waiting and his concerned look, she gave him a big hug. Even so, her arms felt stiff, the sniffles still prominent, like she was bracing herself against him instead of melting into his grasp. Whatever this was, it was something serious.

"Krystal." Fox pulled back, frowning. "What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, aquamarine eyes feeling like they were staring deep into his soul. "There's something I need to ask you about."

"What?" Fox smiled, running a hand through the fur on the side of her face. "You can ask me about anything, you know."

She sniffled again. "This is something I've been thinking about for over a month. I've been too afraid to ask until now."

An ominous feeling descended on him, a slight chill running down his spine. Nonetheless he nodded for her to continue.

"Umm…" She averted her eyes from him. "I've heard a rumor about something. I don't know how true it is but…there may be a Cerinian colony out there that survived the destruction of my homeworld."

"That's great news!" Relief washed over Fox, his eyes brightening back up again. "Why are you acting like this?"

Krystal's ears rolled back, as she shut her eyes. As soon as it happened, Fox found the happy mood gone again, replaced by the dread. This was probably the part she was preparing him for. "If you don't mind, I…" She took a deep breath. "I—I want to leave Star Fox."

His hands clutched a little bit tighter around Krystal, as though he were afraid she'd vanish. "You're leaving me?!" he blurted out.

"Oh no, no, no, Fox!" she shook her head. "It's nothing like that! I just want to go out and look for that colony."

He was on a rollercoaster of emotions right now, each thing she said sending a new shockwave through his system. If she wanted to search for that colony then— "I want to go with you!" He said the words without hesitation, a huge smile on his face, as he felt relieved all over again.

"R—Really?! You will?"

All the worry melted away from her face.

"Of course!" Fox nodded.

She buried herself into his arms, putting her muzzle right underneath his and nuzzling into his chest fur. The two of them held onto each other, letting each other's glow wash over them. And to think both of them had been worried. Pulling back, Fox grinned at her once more.

"Okay, so this colony, where is it exactly?"

"Umm…" Krystal's ears folded back, looking away from him. "The system it's in… It's the uh… Diaspora System."

Fox narrowed an eye. He'd been to a lot of places, but that system sounded new to him, raising an important question. "How far is it from Lylat?"

Krystal cleared her throat. "A couple of weeks away by warp… I think." She looked away from Fox. "One way."

Fox's tail dropped. The air let out of his enthusiasm like it was a leaky balloon. A trip that far would be expensive. Plus Star Fox would be missing out on business while out of system. He ran some figures in his head: how big his bank account was right now, the cost of fuel to fly out there, the extra wear and tear on the _Great Fox II_ , and a number of other costs he would need to consider for such a trip. Maybe they could get a ride on a spaceliner and he could store the _Great Fox II_ somewhere, but the docking fees would be horrendous and it'd be expensive and time consuming to start that ship back up again. Even doing the mental calculations in his head, he knew the math wouldn't work out. Sighing, he looked back at Krystal.

"I'm sorry Krys, but I can't afford to make a trip like that. I don't have the money to shut down Star Fox right now."

Moisture welled up on the underside of Krystal's eyes. Given her abilities, she probably knew what he was going to say even before he'd spoken it. Fox hated dashing her dreams. In fact, he would have loved to go with her. What a shame.

"Can I go by myself then?" she stepped in a little bit closer.

"By yourself?"

He knew she could take care of herself. Before they met, she'd travelled the galaxy alone for two years after her homeworld was destroyed. Even so, Fox had a terrible feeling if he let her leave, they might not see each other again. But she'd been agonizing over being the only Cerinian left ever since she joined Star Fox. Was it fair to make her wait to be reunited with her people? What if their roles were reversed? He chewed his lip, wincing as he weighed it all up in his head. He tried to think of some way they could make this work better, but ended up drawing a blank.

"I'm sorry Fox." Krystal took his hand. "I know I've forced a hard decision on you here."

 _Big understatement there._ He looked at her, staring deep into her eyes. Even though she'd only been on the team for a little over a year, she already felt like an indispensable part of it, and he knew there'd be a massive hole in his heart without her around. But if this healed the hole in her own heart, he could stand her being away for a little while.

"Well Krystal." Fox forced a smile, looking back at her. "How long do you think you'll be gone?"

Krystal frowned at the question. "Probably a month alone for the travel time, plus the time I'd need to investigate the system. Maybe…you could give me about three months?"

"Three months? Okay." Fox nodded. "I can live with that. I'll tell you what, three months from now I'll make sure we're docked over on Corneria. Give me a call when you're headed back. We can meet at that little café you like in downtown Corneria City and you can tell me all about your little adventure when you get there." He chuckled. "I'm going to be really jealous when you get back. This sounds like an incredible journey you're going on."

Krystal chuckled too. "That sounds great Fox. Okay, three months it is."

"Kiss on it?"

She didn't even wait, pulling him into the biggest, longest kiss they'd ever shared, the two of them embracing and holding onto each other like they would die if they let go of each other.

* * *

"She loaded her Cloudrunner fighter for the trip and I waved her goodbye the next day." Fox sighed, tears welling up in his eyes. "Exactly three months later, I went to that café like I promised I would. I waited there all day, and even went back there for a few days afterwards. She never showed up, never even gave me a call. I don't know where she is now." He buried his head in his hands. "I had that feeling I might lose her forever if I let her go… I think I was right."

Not knowing why she didn't come back made it all the harder to deal with it. Did something happen to her? Was she dead? Captured by pirates? Stranded somewhere? Did she decide she was happier staying at the Cerinian colony instead of coming back to Lylat? What could it be? It could be any of those reasons or none of them, and not knowing had been eating away at Fox ever since the lonely day in the café. He'd spent almost every free moment dwelling on her disappearance and what a big mistake he'd made letting her go on her own.

Fara laid an arm over his back, pulling him in closer. She patted him a few times, letting him rest against him. Fox appreciated the gesture, nodding his approval.

"You know where she went. Ever thought about going to the Diaspora System to look for her?"

"I've considered it, but I still don't have the money to make the journey. I could sell off some of Star Fox's assets to finance it, but that'd put me out of business. I love her, I really do. But this is putting me between a rock and a hard place. There's no telling if she's even still in that system." Even so, over the past few months, he seriously considered shutting down Star Fox and selling everything off so he could follow after her. Should he do it or should he not do it? The question tormented him endlessly.

"Peppy's paying you pretty good for this mission though, isn't he?" Fara asked.

"Yeah, I'd say so." Fox smiled, wiping his tears away. "And it will be enough to make a trip out there."

She chuckled. "All the more motivation to get this job done quickly, huh?"

"I would say so." He glanced over at the alarm clock on his night stand. "Oh, looks like it's almost seven. We should get going on supper."

"I am so looking forward to that bountiful feast of instant noodles and whatever you've got in those cans." She shook her head, chuckling.

Laughing, headed back towards the common room. Once there, Fox and Fara set out on a mission in the kitchen to throw together something vaguely appetizing. They tossed canned meat and canned veggies into a pot, cooked the instant noodles in a separate pot, and combined them to create a vague stir-fry concoction. They couldn't do a whole lot with the ingredients they had, although he admitted it looked better than anything he or his other teammates ever cooked. You'd think everyone in Star Fox would learn to become creative chefs, considering how much free time they had to learn between jobs.

After calling Falco and Slippy in, they sat around the dining table, eating what Falco dubbed the 'beef noodle thing' when he first saw what they'd made.

"So…" Fara said between tentative mouthfuls. "This is what it's like to dine as a Star Fox member, huh?"

"I might have missed working with you Foxie," Falco smirked, slurping some of the noodles. "But I sure didn't come back for the food. No joke, I've eaten better jail food than this." He pointed at it with a fork.

Fox was in the middle of a bite, and he choked for a moment. "Jail?!" He coughed, covering his mouth with his hand. "What happened?!"

Falco held up his hands, leaning back in his seat as he laughed. "Hey, whoa Foxie. Don't get the wrong idea. It wasn't a Cornerian jail or anything. No, this was some jail being run by a warlord on Zoness. Katt and I had a job in his turf, and we got in trouble with him and… well yeah. It's okay though. One little bribe and the guards let us walk right out. Warlord didn't pay 'em enough." He burst out laughing. "That's what you get for underpaying your goons."

"Sounds like you and Katt are still having wild times out there, huh?" Fara grinned, as she took a sip of some water.

"Yeah…I hate to say this Fox, but I definitely prefer Katt's company to yours."

"Oh, I'm soooooo jealous." He gave a sarcastic flirty wink. "So Katt let you come over to help out, huh? Can she hold up business on her end without you?"

"It'll be harder without me, for sure, but she knew how important it was for me to make sure everything was OK with Slippy's dad and you. She's all right on dealing without me."

Fox smiled, but inward he felt jealous about how Falco and Katt were still in contact and he could easily join right back with her after this job was done. Would he ever find Krystal again? Who knew where she was these days? The odds of running into her again would be slim to none…

A buzzer sounded next to Fox. The nearby comms screen beeped on the wall, showing ROB trying to contact them from the bridge. He hated being interrupted while eating, although he supposed it was probably important. Sighing, he walked over and pressed the button to answer. "Yeah ROB, what is it?"

"Incoming message for you from Fortuna."

"Fortuna?" Fox raised an eyebrow. Everyone turned to the comms screen with rapt attention.

"The message originated from a Cornerian scout ship in the area. It is intelligence related to your current mission."

Could this be a lead on Star Wolf's location? A smile tugged on the edge of his face. "I'll be right there ROB." The vulpine turned back to the table, waving for them to get up. "Well, come on guys! We better see what this is!"

The four of them hurried to the bridge, Fox excited about the prospect of getting some new intelligence. He never did like sitting around the _Great Fox II_ waiting for jobs or new information to come to him. Going over this new data would be a pleasure, not to mention a relief. He was worried about Peppy sending them off to Fortuna without knowing anything else about what was going on. Hopefully this would fix all of that.

They dashed into the bridge, screeching to a halt next to ROB's slot at the front of the room.

"ROB, what you got for me?" Fox asked.

"Playing on the main screen now." ROB's turned his head around to face them.

The main screen lit up, displaying an image of a Cornerian dog soldier, wearing the traditional blue and yellow helmet along with a gray jacket. Pointed ears stuck out of the helmet, gray fur showing wherever more of his body could be seen.

"This is a message for the Star Fox team. Sir, we have new intel on the location of Star Wolf's mothership, the _Retribution_." The canine sounded almost as robotic as ROB, the visor adding to the impression. "They are docked on the dark side of Fortuna's moon Genma, currently operating in a reduced power state to conserve energy and to hide their signature. If you hurry, you can catch them and take them by surprise. See the attached data."

A 3D hologram popped up as the soldier finished his speech, showing a detailed model of the _Retribution_ with specs and statistics to match. Fox stepped closer, examining the data. "That ship's got some serious firepower." He stroked his jaw, looking at the point defenses. "Missile batteries, laser turrets, a full carrier's worth of fighters and other ships…"

"Amazing Wolf's still got all that, even with how much of his force we captured back at Sargasso." Fara moved to look at the model beside Fox.

"Eh…" Falco waved a hand dismissively. "It's just one carrier and some fighters. What's the big deal? That's peanuts compared to Andross or the Aparoids."

"Don't underestimate Star Wolf, Falco." Fox turned around. "We've always beaten Wolf in the past, but one thing I know about him is he never gives up. Shooting him down twice during the Lylat Wars didn't stop him. The Aparoids didn't stop him." He looked over at Fara. "And losing Sargasso didn't stop him either. He's full of surprises, and that's why we can't treat this like business as usual."

"Come on, this will be a piece of cake!" Falco chuckled, sliding into one of the chairs around the bridge and leaning back into it. The bird put his feet up on the console in front of him, folding his arms around the back of his head. "Once the shooting starts, it'll be over in five minutes."

"It'll be over in five minutes for _you_ Falco, if you don't watch it." Fara narrowed his eyes at him.

"We've lived this long in the merc business. We can handle this just fine."

"Yeah? Well I remember how being hotheaded and cocky kept getting you in trouble at the academy and—"

"Oh, you're gonna bring that up again?" Falco narrowed his eyes. "Well how about—"

Fox watched the two bicker back and forth. He wasn't worried though, grinning at the little argument. Those two fought all the time back in the flight academy. They'd get over it eventually.

Wait a second. Where was Slippy? Looking around, he spotted the toad studying the _Retribution's_ 3D model, an angry scowl on his face. He'd never seen his friend with such a vicious expression. Slippy looked like he wanted to hurt someone. Badly. Fox felt scared to see him like this.

Nonetheless, he stepped over, putting a hand on the toad's shoulder. "You doin' OK Slip?"

Slippy didn't answer. Fox raised an eyebrow, resorting to snapping a finger in front of his face to get his attention. "Slippy?"

The toad glanced over at Fox, giving him only a periphery look. "I'm fine..." He turned back to the model.

Fox sensed his presence wasn't wanted. Even so, this was a conversation they needed to have. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Slippy's eyes stayed fixed on the data. "Just… looking for weak spots we could shoot. That's all I'm good at, after all."

"Maybe I could help you?"

"Just…" Slippy extended a hand to wave Fox away. "Go away, please?"

Fox's eyes widened, astonished at his friend's words. The vulpine couldn't recall a time in recent memory when Slippy outright rejected someone trying to make friendly chatter.

"Slip…" Fox put a hand on Slippy's shoulder again. "I know you're upset about your dad. You've hardly spoken since we left Corneria. But look, you can't fight Star Wolf like that. I need you to be focused and level-headed once we're out there. Can you do that for me?"

"I'll try," Slippy muttered.

Fox didn't like the way he'd said that. "If you want revenge, you have to stay alive. Letting emotions cloud your judgment could be fatal. Remember how I flew off to fight Andross by myself? It was a stupid mistake. I wanted to get back at Andross over my dad. I almost got killed when Andross triggered the self-destruct for his base. If it wasn't for—"

Fox stopped. He never told anyone about how his father came out of nowhere to save him back then, guiding him out of the exploding base. He still wasn't sure if that was real, or if it was something his subconscious cooked up as part of survival instinct. So he supposed it was best to keep it to himself.

"Anyway…" He coughed. "If I'd waited for the rest of you, we might have been able to destroy him before he got a chance to do that. I'm not gonna lie, it felt great to make him pay for what he did, but I really shouldn't have done what I did. I was a lot younger and stupider. I don't want you making the same mistake, okay Slippy?"

Slippy's eyes remained focused on the _Retribution's_ model, but he did turn to give Fox a small nod.

"Okay, Slip. Look… We'll get back at Wolf. We'll take the case back, and maybe even put Wolf out of business for good while we're at it. But we can't do that if you're acting like this in the middle of battle. A team's only as strong as its weakest link."

"Like I need to be reminded of that." Slippy closed his eyes, sighing. "You always have to save me."

Fox winced. Big mistake saying something like that."S—Sorry Slip. But it doesn't have to be that way, okay?" He glanced back at the model of the _Retribution_. "Tell you what. How about you help me come up with a strategy for how we can deal with Star Wolf? Identify all the weak spots in their offense and defense? You're really good at that analyzing kind of stuff. It was a big help in the Lylat Wars."

"Analyzing kind of stuff?" Slippy gave Fox a small smile. "That's a weird way to put it."

Fox laughed back. "I guess so. Anyway, what do you say?"

"That sounds… good. It sounds good Fox." Slippy pointed at the 3D model. "Speaking of analyzing, this is a very detailed schematic here, even more than what my own programs and custom-made computers can do. I've got locations of ammunition dumps, fuel stores, turret locations and types, number and types of fighters; number of crew members, what divisions the crew members work in…" Slippy turned over to Fara, still bickering with Falco. "Fara, could you come over here?"

Fara looked up. While surprised at first, she seemed glad to have a chance to get away from Falco for a moment. She gave a sideways smirk to the bird, who in turn shrugged and returned to leaning back in his chair. Striding over, she said, "Sure! What's up?"

"Look at this." Slippy stepped aside to give her a better look at the images. "Is it normal to get all this data from Cornerian scout ships now? It's almost like they got ahold of the actual blueprints, inventories, and personnel records of the ship."

Fara looked at the model, examining the reams and reams of information. "No, this is crazy!" Her eyes went wide, ears turning back. She shook her head. "It's like Corneria upgraded its intelligence gathering services. The type of equipment needed to produce this data would have to be in testing back on Corneria. It wouldn't be on some random scout ship near Fortuna. It's almost… it's almost like…"

"Like you have a spy on the _Retribution_?" Falco called out. He slipped out of the chair, walking over to get a closer look at the 3D model with the others. "Can't think of any other way the information could be that deep."

"A spy?" Fox raised an eyebrow.

"We don't have any spies in Star Wolf that I know of." Fara leaned against a console, tilting her head as she wracked her memory. "But then again, I'm a test pilot for the military. I wouldn't know anything about our spy ops."

Fox folded his arms. "We're already going to Fortuna anyway. We know for a fact Wolf used Meteo's warp holes to get there. So either way, this doesn't change our original plan a whole lot. I hope the intelligence is underestimating things though. That's a big force." His eyes swept over the tabular data next to the ship's 3D model. He turned back to the group. "Anyway, let's look over all this tonight and use it to come up with a plan. If we can catch them while they're powered down, this shouldn't be too much trouble. What do you say? Ready to figure out how we're going to get back at Star Wolf?"

"I'm all in." Fara smiled.

"Sure!" Slippy piped in, some of his old bubbly voice returning.

Falco shrugged. "I'd just prefer to wing it, but Fox, you're my…" He paused, then grinned. "Well, you're not my boss anymore. But I'll go along with it this time."

Fox smiled. Falco could be an ass sometimes, but the vulpine missed having him around. "All right, let's get started team!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Panther roamed through the _Retribution's_ corridors, not paying attention to where he was going. Everything around him felt like a blur as he passed by, his mind going in a thousand different directions. They lost the case, Sable was breathing down their necks, Wolf would find out about the Hyoodin soon, and Panther didn't know what he was going to do about any of that. He'd been walking all over the entire ship ever since getting back from Fortuna, trying to come up with some sort of plan. But he couldn't focus at all, feeling like he was drowning in his own thoughts. _What do I do?_ The words repeated in his head. _What do I do? What do I do?_

He paced into the dormitory section of the ship. Panther didn't come down here much, considering like Wolf and Leon he had private quarters in another part of the ship. As he passed through a dirty commons area, his foot clinked against a discarded aluminum can, sending it bouncing across the stained plastic floor. A gray canine in a dirty blue jumpsuit lay spread out across an old couch, the room's only occupant. The canine watched some old black and white martial arts film on a TV. 'Watas' and 'hiyas' echoed around the dirty space. Panther reached the other end of the room, entering a deserted hallway full of cabins. Old boxes and bags of trash lined the corridor, bits of rotting food scattered about on the floor. Panther wrinkled his nose at the smell, considering turning back.

However, he heard a peculiar sound coming out of an open doorway further down the hall. Were those squealing tires? Panther narrowed his eyes as he moved closer, peering through the gap. A large, spherical hologram filled the middle of the cabin. Panther struggled to make out the blurry image projected onto the sphere. The sounds of howling engines and screeching tires blasted out from speakers mounted in the room's corners. Then Panther realized someone was sitting _inside_ the hologram, the bottom of a chair and legs visible underneath the image. Panther had never seen anything like this before, and slid the door open to take a better look.

The speakers went silent, the sphere vanishing to reveal a yellow cat with brown stripes seated where it had been. As he turned around, Panther recognized Giichi's face. He gasped seeing Panther standing there, his greenish-yellow eyes going wide. Silence hovered in the room for a second or two.

Panther decided to speak first. "Sorry Giichi, I didn't mean to intrude."

"Oh, it's fine." Giichi let out a nervous-sounding laugh. "Did you…uh…need something?"

"No, but that hologram… What was that?"

Upon hearing the question, Giichi let out a toothy smile, his anxiety vanishing. "You'd like to know?" Giichi got out of the chair. Now that Panther could get a better look, he noticed Giichi had set up a virtual racing cockpit where the hologram was, complete with a body-hugging racing seat, a steering wheel, a stick shift, and pedals, all mounted to a steel frame. The sand cat pushed a button on the keyboard near the steering wheel. The hologram sphere popped back into existence again. "Come over here. Have a seat."

Panther didn't know what to make of this, but decided to play along. He walked towards the hologram.

"Watch your step," Giichi used his arm to guide him into the racing seat. "It's a bit disorienting at first."

As Panther settled into the chair, he couldn't believe his eyes. It made sense now. You needed to view the hologram from the _inside_ , not the outside. The sphere gave him a full 360 degree, 3-D view of the interior of a race car, with the race track visible right outside. He almost felt like he was really there. Panther marveled at the sight, turning his head to look at every little detail of the interior. The only thing that gave it away as fake was the pause menu floating in front of the windshield, and the fact that he couldn't physically touch anything except for the racing cockpit's controls. "This…this is…"

"It's something, isn't it?" Giichi laughed, his voice disembodied as he stood outside the sphere. "Do you want to try driving a bit?"

"I-I don't know," Panther looked around. "This…it's overwhelming. It's so real I feel a bit scared…"

"Do you recognize it?"

"Recognize what?" Panther cocked his head towards Giichi's voice.

"Look at the cockpit. Look familiar?"

Panther took a second look. Wine red upholstery. White body paint. Wheel and door panels outfitted in duracyclene fiber. Gauges and trim gleaming with shiny chrome. "Wait…this is the Hyoodin."

"Ha, you got it! _Your_ Aquila Hyoodin! It's in all the same colors!"

Panther ran a finger along the top of the speedometer. Even though he couldn't actually touch it, he noticed the light glinted off the chrome in just the same way it did in real life. "Oh my…"

"This game simulates your car so accurately you can even play around with all the little controls. All those gauges, buttons, and monitors you see in the cockpit? They actually work and you can interact with them just like in the real car. You can use them to adjust the suspension, the aerodynamics, and the transmission without ever getting out of the car, just like the real Hyoodin." Giichi's disembodied hand reached inside the sphere. "So are you sure you don't wanna give this a try?" The cat giggled, pressing a button on the nearby keyboard.

The pause screen vanished, the race back in full swing. Roaring engines and squealing tires assaulted Panther's ears. He grabbed at the wheel out of instinct, only to discover the wheel fought back and resisted, as if he were driving the car at these speeds in real life. He gasped, trying to rein the beast in. The virtual world looked like a rainbow of colors as it flashed past the windows. A turn approached with Panther flying along at well over four hundred km/h towards it. He stomped on the brake pedal. The Hyoodin's tires screamed in protest. Panther turned the wheel as hard as he could, gritting his teeth, but the Hyoodin plowed straight ahead into the turn's outer wall. The Hyoodin sideswiped the barrier with a loud clang, coming to a screeching halt. Engines rumbled as the rest of the cars drove on past, leaving Panther in the dust. Panther breathed hard, his hands still clutched around the wheel. It all felt so real he thought he was about to die for a second there.

Giichi reached inside the hologram again, hitting a button on the keyboard. The sphere vanished, replaced by a more standard flat screen hovering in the air. Giichi smiling down at Panther. "Overwhelming, isn't it?"

"Yes it is…" Panther caught his breath, looking at the pause menu in front of him. "What game was that?"

" _Grand Tourer 7_. Two hundred and fifty-two tracks. Five thousand and sixty-four cars spanning three centuries of automotive history. Although at least five hundred of those cars are just Cosan GI-R clones…" Giichi coughed. "But it is one of the most realistic driving sims on the market right now."

Panther's eyes widened at the statistics.

"So…wanna try driving your Hyoodin again?" Giichi moved the mouse towards the 'Restart' button.

"Uh… I don't know." Panther looked back at the game. "Actually, I wasn't planning to drive my Hyoodin fast. To tell you the truth, I just got it because I thought it looked great and the ladies would be attracted to it."

Giichi's jaw dropped at that. You'd think Panther just announced he murdered Giichi's family. "What the hell, Panther?!"

"Wh-what's wrong?" Panther leaned back in the chair, not knowing what to make of this.

"There's only twenty Aquila Hyoodins in the entire universe." Giichi growled, his teeth on full display as he glared down at the larger cat. "They're going to be the last cars that Sergei Aquila puts his name on before he retires and hands over the company to his son. Sixty years from now, they're probably going to be worth fifty million credits instead of just two point five million. And you…you're going to use yours to…pick up chicks?! You son of a bitch… How can you be so wasteful, so selfish?! You might as well fingerpaint on Ricasso's works in the Cornerian National Gallery!"

Was this happening right now? Was Giichi actually insulting him and yelling at him? Panther stared into Giichi's rage-filled face, unable to process what he'd just heard. He never expected that he'd one day see Giichi of all people talking down to him like this.

A moment or two passed…the snarl fading from Giichi's face. He seemed to realize what he'd just done, and it was like night and day. Now the sand cat trembled, getting down on his knees. "Panther… Did I just say all of that out loud?"

"You…did?" To tell the truth, Panther was too busy processing what just transpired to feel insulted.

"Oooh…" Giichi closed his eyes, running a hand over his face. "I am so, so sorry. I lost my temper there. Please don't do anything to—"

"Uh…" Panther waved a hand to calm him down. "It's okay Giichi, really…" He still couldn't believe he'd just been yelled at by someone half his size with such a meek personality. Panther thought it might be best to just pretend whatever just transpired never happened.

Fortunately, Giichi seemed to feel the same way. "So…uh…" He rubbed his hands together. "I've got to say…with how realistic _Grand Tourer 7_ is, I could give you some pointers about how to drive the Hyoodin as intended by Mr. Sergei Aquila. What do you think?"

Panther sat in the chair, unsure of what to do. On the one hand, all those problems he had weren't going to go away while he was sitting here. The case missing, Sable furious, Wolf discovering the Hyoodin… On the other hand, he'd been wandering the ship for hours and didn't feel any closer to figuring out what to do about any of that. Come to think of it, what _was_ there for him to do at this point? They had most of the _Retribution's_ crew already hunting for the case. One extra warm body wouldn't make much of a difference. He supposed maybe he could relax for a bit, clear his head…

He smiled. "Well, okay. I guess I can stay for a while."

Giichi laughed, pumping his fists. "Great!"

The sand cat punched some buttons on the keyboard. After navigating through a number of menus at dizzying speed, they found themselves on the game's career menu. Slow, relaxing lounge music wafted into Panther's ears, a saxophone's rich voice hanging in the air around them.

"This music… I didn't expect that."

"I know!" Giichi laughed, started punching keys on the keyboard, flashing through commands as if he'd run through these menus thousands of times before. "Really helps you calm down between races. I have it on my music player. Anyway, maybe you should try racing in the go-karts first. They're a good starting point."

"Go-karts? Are you serious? Karts are for kids! Like that kart racing game with the mushrooms, the princesses, and the turtles!"

"A lot of professional racers get their start in karts." Giichi kept taking them through more menus. "Don't knock them. Besides, they're a lot of fun."

"No." Panther pushed Giichi's hand away from the keyboard. "I'm driving the Hyoodin."

"Are you sure? There's a good reason this game starts you off in the karts." He almost sounded like a worried teacher. "If you go straight to the fast cars it'll be really hard, and—"

"Just let me drive my car, would you?"

Giichi looked at Panther without a word, looking like he was debating in his head how to answer. Before long, he let out a sigh. "All right, if you insist." He pointed a finger at the larger cat. "But I warned you."

Giichi flew through several more menus, too fast for Panther to follow. Soon, a screen appeared showing a coastal highway, a ribbon of blacktop hugging a cliff curving its way along deep blue sea. Green grass and pine trees sprouted up wherever a flat patch of ground could be found. The sun shone down from the blue sky, puffy white clouds floating past. It looked as perfect as a postcard. The text at the top of the screen declared it as 'Corneria City Route 101 - Outbound'. The camera panned down to show Panther's white Hyoodin waiting at the start line.

Giichi's words forgotten, Panther grinned as he pushed the 'Start' button. The spherical screen came back, surrounding Panther with the Hyoodin's interior. A smirk on his face, Panther slammed down on the accelerator, and the car let out a mighty howl, the rear tired screaming like banshees. But then he realized he wasn't moving forward very much, as the back of the car vanished in a cloud of white smoke. "Why isn't it going?"

Giichi laid a hand on his shoulder, crouching down to speak into his ear. "Modulate the accelerator more."

"Huh?" Panther turned to look at Giichi.

"You're treating the gas like it's an on-off switch. There's more options besides zero percent and a hundred percent gas."

"Gas?" Panther released the accelerator and letting the car idle.

Giichi blinked, looking confused himself. Then he let out a laugh. "Oh, sorry…" He rubbed the back of his head. "Only car nuts really say that anymore. The word 'gas' is a holdover from back when our cars still ran on gasoline. Gas, see?"

"What's gasoline?"

"Eh, it's not important. Ancient history…" Giichi turned his eyes back to the screen, leaning on the back of Panther's chair. "Now, this time, try pushing in the pedal gradually. Start at maybe a fifth of the way down, then slowly push in as you gain speed."

Panther depressed the pedal as Giichi directed. The car jumped forwards with a slight tire chirp. He started to pick up a little speed.

"Okay…" Giichi watched the speedometer rise. "It's safe now. Full throttle."

Panther pushed the accelerator down. With traction found, the Hyoodin shot down the narrow black lane, Panther's eyes widening at how fast the speed climbed. Giichi was right. The car seemed to cooperate a lot more with gradual throttle input compared to slamming on the gas. He soon found himself flying along at almost two hundred and forty kilometers per hour. That would be slow for his Black Rose, but it felt scary fast doing this in a car on a narrow road. The trees lining the road almost blurred together into solid green stripes. Panther could see the first turn approaching, marked by a barrier colored with alternating red and white arrows. Within seconds he was almost upon it.

"Brakes! Brakes!" Giichi shouted.

Panther slammed down on the brakes and turned the wheel towards the inner part of the turn…but then he noticed the car wasn't turning. It plowed straight ahead, slamming into the wall and bouncing right off. As the car grinded to a halt, Panther realized he could feel sweat coming from his palms, the fluid getting on the steering wheel. It happened again… The car just ignored his steering and went right into the wall, like the first time.

"Good thing I changed it to cosmetic damage only for you…" Giichi smirked at Panther. "Looks like you need practice braking, huh?"

"I need practice braking? But why would I need practice doing that? You just push the brakes and the car slows down."

The smile left Giichi's face. "It's not that simple. If you slam on the brakes too hard, the tires lock up and they won't grip the road. Once that happens, you're just a passenger. The car's gonna go straight ahead until you regain traction…or hit the wall. Whichever comes first. That's what we call understeer." The sand cat glanced at the screen again. "You know…maybe I should have enabled the ABS for you too. I forgot I had it turned off."

"ABS?"

Giichi chuckled. "Oh, Anti-lock braking system. The ABS is meant to prevent what you just went through. If the car's computer detects a tire is locking up from hard braking, it decreases braking force to that tire to allow it to keep traction. It's been mandatory safety equipment on cars for decades now. They're so ubiquitous and reliable that no one really thinks or talks about ABS anymore. It's just another piece of the car, like the wheels or the engine."

"But if it's so useful, why would you turn it off?"

"For some extra difficulty…" Giichi grinned. "You become a better driver if you don't let a computer do the work for you. I always make things harder on myself when I'm driving. It's no fun otherwise. Anyway, you want to enable ABS?"

Panther thought about it for a bit…but then decided he'd take this as a challenge. "No, I think I'd like to keep it this way." He added on a cocky grin.

"You sure?"

Panther nodded. Giichi clapped him on the shoulder. "That's the spirit. Anyway, get the car back on the road. Let's try again at the next corner."

Panther moved the car away from the wall, pointing it back down the road. Using Giichi's accelerator technique, the Hyoodin surged forwards, flying down the straight, beckoning Panther to go faster and faster. Giichi fed him some more tips about braking as he drove along. "Remember what I said about the gas? You need to do the same thing with the brakes. Push the brake in slowly. Don't slam down on it. If you can feel the tires shaking, you're pushing too hard. Ease back a bit if that happens." Giichi's eyes narrowed, gazing far ahead down the road. "Now here comes the next turn… Let's see how you do."

Feeling more cautious this time, Panther braked earlier. But he realized he'd slowed down too much, taking the turn at a pitiful slow speed.

Giichi grinned. "It's OK, better than slamming into the wall. Racing's all about feel and timing. You need to spend some time learning how the car behaves and what its limits are. How soon you can apply gas, when to brake, all that stuff."

Carrying on, Panther pushed down the throttle to exit the turn…and then found his car's nose turning towards the inner guardrail. Panther crashed right into it. First he was surprised, then he growled at the spinout.

"Ah yeah…" Giichi flicked one of his messy bangs away from his face. "Now that's oversteer…the opposite of understeer. Your rear tires lost traction from too much gas. You gotta take it easy when launching this car, especially coming out of turns. It's best to not put your foot down fully until you've exited the turn."

Panther felt himself getting a little pissed off now. Why was this so hard? Race car drivers made all of this look easy. He felt stupid wrecking this car again and again in front of Giichi.

Giichi appeared to sense his feelings. "Well Panther…" he started. "I'm sorry. I know this is hard…but I did warn you about starting with the Hyoodin, didn't I?"

Panther didn't answer that. He thought this would be a nice way to relax, but instead he felt even more upset now. This game was supposed to be true to life. So if he tried driving his Hyoodin in real life, he'd wreck it in no time. Not only had he put his life on the line to get a hyper car, he couldn't even drive the thing… Panther jumped out of the chair, almost knocking over Giichi as he stormed towards the door.

"Hey! Panther!" Giichi followed after him. "What's wrong? Where are you going?"

Panther halted in his tracks, still feeling a little steam seeping out of his ears. "This…this is…" He wanted to say it was all too hard, but he couldn't spit it out. He thought after flying a fighter for so long, driving a fast car would be no problem at all. But it turned out he'd been completely wrong on that count. He'd been such a fool, and now it was going to cost him his job in Star Wolf, and maybe his life on top of that. His terrible performance driving in this game was just an insult added to injury.

The sand cat stepped in front of Panther, looking up to him. "Look… It's okay. Driving fast isn't as easy as it looks. It's something you need decades to perfect. And there's not many people in Lylat that can take the Hyoodin to its maximum potential. That's why I wanted you to try something like karts first." Panther took another step to the door, but Giichi slammed a hand around his wrist. "Come on… Just give it another chance. I was just like you when I was first starting out too, but I didn't give up."

Panther gazed back at the chair, looking at the monitor along with the steering wheel and the pedals. That game humiliated him…but would he feel happy about running away? No… It was just a video game after all. He faced death in real life again and again in his fighter, but now he was getting flustered over a damn video game? Panther narrowed his eyes. _No… I'm not letting this game beat me._

Panther sighed, sliding back into the chair. "Okay…let's do it…" He gripped the steering wheel.

"Do you wanna try karts this ti-?"

" **No**." Panther squeezed the rubber on the steering wheel. "I'm doing this in **my** car."

Giichi grimaced at the sound of that, but shook his head. "So be it." He pushed the 'restart' button on the pause menu, sending them back to the start of the point-to-point track. "Okay…since you want to stick to this car, let's try doing some warm ups before we get really serious. How about you try going around the course at about sixty to seventy percent?"

"Percent?" Panther raised an eyebrow.

"When I say percent, I mean about sixty to seventy percent of your limit. How fast you think you can go. See if you can get to the end of the course without crashing. Once you're able to do that, up the percentage a bit. Just keep working your way up until you can do it at one hundred percent, doing a perfect racing line without making mistakes."

With a sigh, Panther gripped the steering wheel. "Okay, I'm going again."

Carrying on, Panther pushed down the accelerator gently, sending him away from the starting point. Although he felt like a little old lady not taking the first straightaway at full blast, it paid dividends once he got to the first turn. Going this slow, he discovered he could pass through the corner without even needing to slow down. The second corner was too sharp to do this, so he braked. It ended up being too early, although since he stayed at sixty percent of the limit it was easy to get out of the turn without spinning out, unlike last time. Carrying on, Panther accelerated into the next straight, continuing down the highway. For most of the following curves he either braked too soon or left the track, but Giichi just kept giving encouragement and tips for how to do better at the next turn. After a while, Panther discovered he kind of liked taking it easy. It gave him time to look at the pretty scenery. He really did feel like he was out in a coastal area on Corneria somewhere, as he glanced down from the cliffside road to the deep blue sea. Before he knew it, they made it to the end of the course. He'd finished in a little over ten minutes.

"Okay…now try it a bit faster," Giichi said. "Seventy percent this time."

Panther hit the restart button, beginning the track again. The challenge went up a bit with the increase in speed. He needed to brake for turns he coasted through before but didn't experience any real mishaps. In fact, doing this track once at sixty percent seemed to have prepared him well for seventy percent. Now he had a feel for the course and where some of the trouble spots were. He finished the course in nine minutes and thirty seconds.

Panther looked up to Giichi, who replied with "Eighty." Reset, back to the start again.

This time Panther almost wiped out on the last hairpin, but other than that the run was good. Giichi made him do eighty again. It took him a few tries, but with Giichi's guidance he figured out how to clear that hairpin while losing minimal speed. Then Giichi ordered him up to eighty five. That lap actually went a bit easier than the eighty-percent ones, considering by this time he knew to brake earlier for the final hairpin. Ninety now. That turned out to be a mountain to climb. The whole way down the track, Panther felt like he was just on the edge of control, like riding a massive wave on a surfboard. One mistake and it would all come crashing down.

Several times he slammed hard into the one of the turn barriers, although each time Giichi encouraged him to try again. "Just try to learn something from every mistake you make. Try to get a little faster each time."

Once Giichi felt confident enough in Panther's abilities, he ordered him up to ninety-five. Panther needed razor-sharp focus to keep his wheels firmly planted, but now he was clearing the circuit in almost half the time of his sixty percent runs. Giichi looked excited as he watched Panther roar round the track again and again. However, he noticed himself starting to make amateur mistakes again, like when he'd first begun. Panther paused the game, giving himself a breather. Turning to Giichi, he said, "Giichi… How do you know so much about racing anyway? You sound like you could be a coach or something."

Giichi giggled. "A coach? Me? Well anyway… I've had lots of practice over the years. I used to drive quite a bit… In games, that is." He added on the last part in a hasty way.

Panther raised an eyebrow. "Used to? But you're playing these games right now."

"Yeah, guess you're right. Didn't meant to say that. Anyway, maybe you should take a break." Giichi stepped away to go to a mini fridge in the corner. "We've been doing this for like an hour and a half now."

"We've been doing this for that long? Really?" Panther wiped sweat off his forehead.

"Yeah, sure have…" Giichi reached into the fridge, taking out two sky blue cans with 'Cosmic Cola' written on them with red lettering. He handed one to Panther before popping the top on his own can.

Panther frowned at the drink. To be honest he didn't drink soda anymore. Too much sugar. He'd rather have coffee, tea, or a fine wine. Nonetheless Panther realized he felt quite thirsty from all of that virtual driving, and gulped the can down.

Giichi gazed back at the monitor, still showing the Cornerian highway behind the pause menu. "I love that track… It reminds me of my student days." He took another sip from his own can.

"Your student days?"

"Yeah… A year or two after the Lylat Wars, I went to CTI to get my computer science degree."

"What's CTI?"

"Cornerian Technical Institute," Giichi smiled as he pointed to a framed degree in the corner. "Best technology college in the Lylat System, more or less. That was a wild time. I made a lot of new friends… George, Stephen, Phoenix… And I got to see systems beyond my little backwater planet too."

"Speaking of your home planet… Thaljista, I mean." Panther took another sip. "I wanted to ask you about it. Sorry to say this, but I've never heard of it."

Giichi's big ears perked up at that. "Oh, it's fine. When I was a student on Corneria, nobody knew what I was talking about when I said I was Thaljistani. Anyway, what would you like to know?"

"What's it like there? Climate? Culture? Women?" Panther added a sly grin on the last one.

"I think you'd love it there. It's paradise if you're a cat."

Panther's eyes widened. A planet for cats, like himself? How had he never heard of this place? "Is that so? Tell me more…"

"Okay… You know how Corneria and most of the Lylat System is full of dogs? Thaljista's like that, but switch the dogs for cats. Lions, tigers, cougars, wildcats, bobcats, lynx, cougars, leopards…you name it." Giichi got a faraway smile on his face. "It's such a warm planet… Deserts, savannahs, jungles… No matter what kind of felid you are, there's a place for you. Most parts of Thaljista don't really get winter, so you can just laze out in the sun year round."

Panther could almost feel his skin glowing just from Giichi's description. With how much time he spent in space as part of Star Wolf, Panther suddenly realized a good stretch out in the sun would feel really great right about now. When was the last time he'd done something like that? And Thaljista was full of cats like himself… He adored Krystal, although he wouldn't mind getting with a panthress at some point. Sadly cats were few and far between in Lylat.

"How'd Thaljista end up with so many cats anyway?"

"Thaljista's actually got a local religion to explain where we all came from…Thaljism. We named our planet after it." Giichi got a dark look on his face. "Supposedly a long time ago, the god Thaal-Ja struck Thaljista with a lightning bolt, sending it deep underground. And then there was this cave all of the cats came out of. And from there we spread across the planet. Why did Thaal-Ja want to bring us to life? Why'd he pick a cave? What purpose does he have for us? Nobody can really agree on that… But anyway, because of that legend, a lot of cats on Thaljista are fond of living underground. In caves, in homes built into the sides of cliffs, up in the mountains, you name it. In fact, our capital city of Gerrant is completely underground."

"An entire city?" Panther's eyes widened. He'd heard there were some underground communities on Corneria. People would retreat there in times of war. This sounded like something on a whole other scale though. "You're talking like hundreds of thousands of people in a city, all underground?"

Giichi nodded. "Yeah, it's quite a sight to behold. It's built under a gigantic mountain. You know how most cities have districts or neighborhoods? Gerrant refers to those as _chambers_ instead."

Panther's eyes raised at the last sentence. He'd never heard of anything like this before. Something nagged at him though. "I don't understand. If it's such a wonderful place, why would you leave? Why are you out here working for us?"

Giichi let out a sigh. "Well… It's not without its problems. Remember how I said it was a great place _if you're a cat_? What do you think it's like if you're not?"

Panther blinked at that. He didn't like the way Giichi put it.

Giichi continued though. "Many native Thaljistanis are xenophobic, distrustful of anybody not of the felidae family. Racism's institutionalized there. Sure, I'm a cat, and I don't have to worry about any of that on a personal level… But…" Giichi sighed. "It's nauseating, being around that casual hatred all the time. I hated seeing it happening around me every day. That's why I originally decided to come to Lylat to study. It's a lot more accepting of all races."

"I don't know about that…" Panther crossed his arms. "After the Lylat Wars, primates and lizards had a hard time getting accepted back into society for several years. Everybody thought they were all still closet Venomians, spying on the population and secretly getting ready for Lylat Wars II. That's why so many of them work for us and the other less-than-legal outfits."

"That may be true about the Lylat Wars, but you guys seemed to get over that pretty quickly…within several years that is. On Thaljista, racism's been the order of the day for generations. Remember that religion I mentioned? Thaljism? It sounds like a harmless fairytale on the surface, but it's left a very ugly legacy. A lot of Thaljistani cats use it as justification for calling themselves a superior race, a chosen people. On Thaljista, if you're not a cat, you can't go to certain places… You can't go into certain stores, restaurants, or parks. Can't have certain kinds of jobs. Can't live in certain neighborhoods. Sometimes entire cities are off-limits too. There is one thing that gives me hope though."

"What's that?"

"Growing up, I thought I was the only person I knew who didn't have casual disdain for non-cats. But people are waking up now…realizing it's better for everybody if we just get along and live side by side. We're nowhere near as prosperous as Lylat… There are a lot of places on Thaljista where people still live like it's fourteen hundred years ago or something. Lylat, I think, is more what we need to be like, where all the species get along much better. I want us to be more like Lylat within the coming decades. We waste so much keeping this racism tradition alive."

Panther chuckled. "You almost sound like a politician or something there."

Giichi gave a little chuckle, finishing off his drink. "Oh, me? Nah… My family was…is pretty well off. Because of that, I just have extra time on my hands to think about things like this. I wished I'd noticed these problems earlier though. I was a lot more selfish and spoiled when I was younger."

"Are you sure you want Thaljista to be more like Lylat? Lylat's got plenty of its own problems too, you know. Andross was Lylatian, after all. Plus the Cornerian government wants to police the entire system and bend it to its will."

"That's nothing compared to some of the things Thaljista's government has done. I'd much rather have a Cornerian-style system in place compared to what we've got now. Besides, now that Andross is gone, things have been pretty peaceful, right?"

"Well… Aside from the Aparoids, I'd say yes… A little too peaceful, actually. It's getting harder for us to find jobs from time to time. That's why we took this job to get that case back."

Giichi gave Panther an odd look at the mention of the case, but didn't say anything. Panther couldn't tell exactly what the sand cat was thinking. But before he could think about it too much longer, his wrist communicator squawked at him. "Sorry," he apologized to Giichi. Sighing, he raised his hand, answering the call.

Wolf's face popped up in the hologram, and he did not look pleased. " **Panther!** Where the **hell** have you been?" The canine's sharp teeth snapped at him.

Panther reared back, the speakers on his communicator squealing from the volume strain. "I've…I've just been talking to Giichi." He glanced over at the sand cat, noticing his ears twisting backwards too at the noise.

"I just got a call from Captain Jamal. Apparently Sable called earlier, and you told her you'd tell me to call her back. Is that right?"

Panther's eyes went wide, remembering their first conversation. She _had_ told him to get Wolf to call her back. "Y-yes…"

"So why didn't you tell me?"

Panther went silent. He knew the reason, but didn't want to spit it out.

"Well, what is it you big black fluffball? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I…I-I…" Panther struggled to come up with an excuse, but he just couldn't think of anything that sounded convincing. Giving up, he told the truth. "I…I just forgot."

"You….you forgot?" Wolf narrowed his eyes, his voice deathly quiet. "You know how much we're being paid here, right?"

Again, Panther couldn't speak. He wanted to switch off the communicator right now, but knew that'd just make things worse in the long run.

"This is _not_ what I need right now, Panther!" Wolf snarled, shouting again. "Now on top of giving her the bad news about the case, I've got to explain that we just _forgot_ to call her back! I bet she'll take all of this _real_ well." A quiet growl murmured up through Wolf's throat. Suddenly his eyes shot back to Panther's, the growl stopping. "On second thought Panther, no, I'm not going to tell her that we forgot to call her back."

"You won't?"

"No. You are."

Panther could feel his black fur turning white at that suggestion.

"Come to the bridge, right this instant. You're going to call her back right now and you're going to tell her what you just told me."

"Right now?"

" **Yes**! **Now**!"

"OkI'llbethere.." Panther stammered, shutting off the communicator. He wanted to weep, as he ran a hand across the top of his head and ears.

"That sounded really bad…" Giichi stepped closer, looking up at Panther. "Are you going to be all right?"

Panther didn't know how to answer. That call felt like a massive jolt back into reality, like a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. So much for Giichi cheering him up and helping him to temporarily forget his problems. Now Panther felt like running away in his Black Rose and never coming back.

"Panther… I'm sorry." Giichi said.

"You're sorry?" Panther tilted his head. "Why?"

"I-I don't know…" Giichi clenched his hands together, pacing around the room and looking nervous. "That Hyoodin… You thought it'd make you happy, but it looks like it's been causing you nothing but misery. I just feel bad for you."

Panther reminded himself Wolf ordered him up to the bridge right now. But his feet felt rooted to the spot. The last thing he wanted to do was head up to the bridge. It would feel like walking to his own execution. But what else could he do?

"Well…" Giichi started. "I guess you'd better go. Uh… I wish I could think of something I could say to make you feel better, but I don't know what."

"I-it's okay…" Panther lied. He was too stunned to think clearly right now. "I-I'd better be going…"

He pushed past Giichi. But before he could leave the room, the sand cat latched a hand around his wrist. Turning around, he met the sand cat's eyes. "I just thought of something." Giichi said. "If you can't stay here anymore, I'm sure Thaljista would welcome you with open arms. Just…just think about that, OK?"

Thaljista… If what Giichi said was true, it'd be the perfect place to go if he had to run. He'd fit right in, and Wolf would never find him there. To think he was actually considering leaving Star Wolf at this point. He never dreamed in all his years he'd be thinking about something like this. However, knowing about Thaljista… He felt better. Not by much. But the weight on his shoulders felt a little lighter. Just knowing about that option was like finding a rock to stand on in the middle of a raging ocean. It gave him some of his sanity back, and for that he felt very grateful.

Panther gave one last look to the sand cat. "Giichi… Thanks."

And with that, he stepped out into the hallway. Looking towards the end of the corridor, Panther clenched his jaw, and started his long, long walk up to his little meeting with Wolf, taking the scenic route. Even so, the next several minutes just felt like a blur in his eyes…a whirlwind of anxiety and terror coursing through his whole body. The walk to the bridge felt too long and yet not long enough somehow.

In time though, he found himself outside the door to the bridge. It whooshed aside, revealing Wolf and Leon standing in the middle of the room. The lupine turned around at the sound of the door opening, spotting Panther. Wolf looked like he wanted to run over and tear Panther's throat out with his jaws, and was only just barely keeping himself contained.

"It's about **damn** time!" Wolf roared, his voice echoing around the bridge. He thrust a finger at the floor next to his feet. "Now get over here! We're calling Sable back right now."

Panther rolled his ears back as he strode over, keeping his eyes focused on the floor. Once in position next to Wolf, he kept his eyes trained at the bottom of the front viewscreen. He wanted nothing more than to simply melt into the floor and disappear right now. Panther could hear the communications officer mouthing off some commands, but they just sounded muffled and quiet to his ears.

Before long, he could see Sable's image shimmering back into view on the screen, a furious scowl upon her face as she looked down upon Wolf. The lupine opened his mouth to speak, but Sable cut him off. " **You!** " She screamed. " **Where the hell have you been?!** " She made Wolf's shouts before sound like polite dinner conversation.

Wolf's ears flattened backwards at her words, eyes squinting as if he could feel her spittle flying out of the screen. Panther watched as Wolf gathered up his courage. "I'm…terribly sorry Sable. Panther here has something to say…"

Glaring at Panther, Wolf motioned for him to take the floor. Panther stepped over, eyes downcast. Yet when he risked a glance upwards, he saw Sable appeared to have calmed down, waiting for him to respond with nothing but a blank look. Quite a contrast from how she shouted at Wolf just before.

"I-I'm sorry Sable." Panther started. "I… Well, a lot's happened since Wolf crashed on the surface of Fortuna. In all the confusion I just forgot to tell him to call you back. I'm terribly sorry about that."

"Oh…" Sable blinked. "I see, Panther. I suppose it happens from time to time."

Off to the side, Panther noticed Wolf's stunned look, his one remaining eye wide open. Panther himself didn't understand why Sable seemed to be giving him a break…not that he was complaining.

However, when she turned her attention to Wolf again, that harsh scowl came right on back. "Okay Wolf," she snarled. "Now what happened? Why did you crash?"

"There was a…a problem."

"A problem?" While relatively calmer this time, Sable sounded like she would explode again at any moment. "And what sort of problem is that?" She shook her head. "Never mind, I don't care about your stupid problems. Just show me the case."

Wolf chewed his lip, Panther spotting beads of sweat rolling down his face. "Umm…I…uh…don't have it."

Silence. Sable stared at Wolf, sitting completely still on the screen. It looked a glitched monitor with the image frozen. Wolf looked back as well, also rooted to the spot. Neither of them said anything for a few moments, almost looking like two statues facing each other. Panther wasn't sure if he preferred things this way to her shouting Wolf's ears off.

"I'm….I'm sorry…" Sable looked away from the camera for a moment, as if her brain struggled to process Wolf's words. "You…you said you don't have it?"

Wolf hesitated, but almost imperceptibly nodded yes.

Sable stared back at Wolf, quiet for another uncomfortably long moment. She picked up a pen off the desk in front of her, twirling it in one hand. "How much are we paying you, again?" Her voice had settled into a monotone at this point.

"One hundred million…ma'am." That was the first time Panther heard Wolf use 'ma'am' in a sentence.

"And you think this is an acceptable level of service for the money I have paid, do you?"

"No ma'am, certainly not." Wolf shook his head.

"What's this problem you have had?"

"I was intercepted by the CDF on the way back to Fortuna, and the ship was shot up. I had to make a crash landing on Fortuna. The c-case fell out while I was on the way down. It's down there in the jungle somewhere."

Sable laughed at that. "Oh, wonderful job you stupid dog! So how are you planning on getting it back?" Her voice dripped with biting sarcasm.

Wolf for his part took a deep breath. Panther watched him, wondering if Wolf was going to mention the fact that someone stole the case after it landed on Fortuna's surface.

"Well, we're searching for it right now. I've got most of the _Retribution's_ crew on the job."

"Pray that they find it soon, dog. My patience is wearing thin. Do you have any idea how hard has been to contact you? This is the first stable connection I've been able to make with your ship in several hours."

"I apologize for that, ma'am," Captain Jamal said. "We've been having some problems with our ship systems today too."

"Problems?" Sable raised an eyebrow, turning to the rhino. "What problems?"

Wolf moved to intercept the question, stepping in front of the captain. "Just some problems with our computers. That's all. They need…updates or something." He grinned at the screen, although anyone could tell he was faking it.

Sable paused again for a rather uncomfortable time frame. The silence on the bridge was deafening.

Again, she was the first one to speak. "That's very interesting Wolf." Her hostile demeanor appeared to have diminished somewhat. "Tell me… Does it feel like you're suffering routine problems? Or does it feel like there's a hacker messing with your systems?"

Wolf's eye shot open. He couldn't speak for a moment. "H…H-how did you-?"

"Hmm…" Sable kept twirling the pen in her hand, looking off to the side. "I wonder if it's those two…"

"Those two?" Wolf raised an eyebrow.

"Let me put it like this. There are others out there who don't want us to get that case. And they're very determined towards that end. It seems they've found out I called you for help."

"Who are they?"

Sable pulled a keyboard into the camera shot, and typed into it. "I don't know how many of them there are, but I have a feeling these two will be somewhere close by."

Two images popped up on the screen. One was a gray canine with yellow eyes, the name listed as "Augustine Strafer" beneath him. Panther thought he seemed familiar. However, the other one he knew all too well. A sand cat. Yellow fur. Greenish-yellow eyes. The name listed as "Giichi Twinkieland."

* * *

 _A/N: Personally, I don't feel that good about this chapter. I think I've compressed too much exposition and plot advancement in too short a time, and the chapters prior to this were too slow. Still, I think I've kept ya'll waiting far too long for an update, so I hope you like what I've got here._

 _Oh ho, and by the way! We've reached a major milestone here. I've pretty much got no beta text left at this point. From this point onwards, we are going to be in uncharted territory now. Only took me…what? Two damn years to get this far? XD_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"What in the actual **fuck**?!" Wolf pointed at the image of Giichi on the bridge's main screen, his teeth flashing into a snarl. Even Leon seemed rattled by his shouting. "That brat was scheming against us the entire time?!"

Panther didn't hear Wolf. The jungle cat looked at the photo of Giichi, seeing the same playful smile the sand cat always had whenever the two of them met. But now it was different. Panther realized that golden smile hid deceit all along. Giichi tricked him into thinking he was making a new friend. Now he saw the lying glint in those bright green eyes, and could almost see the edges of the grin tugging upwards into a mocking, wicked curl. How could he have not noticed before?

"Giichi should still on the ship," Wolf muttered, looking off to the side. He spun around and jerked a finger at the security chief. "Roland! Put the _Retribution_ on lockdown now! No one leaves! Get eyes on the hangar bays and escape pods! And start checking the cameras for him too!"

The warthog sitting at the security station jumped at the yelling, his glasses almost falling off his face from surprise. "Y-yes sir!" Roland fumbled to push the glasses back onto the bridge of his snout, turning towards the security cameras. He typed at rapid fire speed, squinting to look past the tusks on his face.

"I guess you were too much of a stupid dog to figure it out." Sable folded her arms on the screen.

Wolf turned back to Sable, looking very small in front of her picture. Being a member of the largest canine species, he stood a lot taller than most people on the _Retribution_. He often used it as a way to intimidate others, pointing his muzzle and ears up to enhance his height. But now he seemed to be on the receiving end of the same treatment. His ears turned backwards and his tail curled between his legs, head turned downwards instead of looking Sable face to face. Never before had Panther seen him so cowed before a client.

"I would be laughing right now if you weren't my only hope for obtaining that case." The panthress scoffed, putting on a sarcastic smile.

 _The case._ Panther had been so caught up in the revelations about Giichi he'd forgotten about it. The whole time he worried about his illicit purchase of the Hyoodin, he wanted to strangle whoever was responsible for stealing that case away from them. Now it turned out one of their accomplices had always been right in front of him. He was such a fool, enraged at his own stupidity and at the person he thought was his friend.

Sable was talking to Wolf about something again, although Panther didn't hear the words. Hand wrapped around the grip of his holstered blaster, he turned to leave, striding towards the bridge's exit. Everything else disappeared from his mind as Giichi's deceiving grin came to the forefront, the image tinted red in his eyes. Only about ten minutes had passed since he'd left Giichi's cabin, so that backstabbing cat could still be there. That little yellow two-faced bastard just earned himself a shot to the kneecap, followed by a visit to Leon's little torture dungeon in the bowels of the ship. Panther usually shunned the chameleon's sessions there, although this time he intended to watch and drink in all of the moans and screams like they were sips of fine wine.

Panther ran through the ship's corridors, the journey nothing but a blur of gray walls to him. His echoing footsteps provided the only soundtrack, the ship still deserted since so many were down on Fortuna's surface hunting for the case. Running through the common area outside Giichi's room, he noticed it was empty, the gray canine sitting on the couch now gone. However, the same martial arts film still played out on the television set. Two monks in black uniforms walked through a monastery's garden, discussing philosophy or some shit.

Ready to dish out some vengeance, Panther drew his blaster as he reached Giichi's door. He swiped his universal keycard over the reader and pulled on the handle. It wouldn't budge. Snarling, Panther yanked again as hard as he could. No change. Swiping the keycard several more times produced the same result.

"Hey!" His radio squawked at him, Wolf's voice coming over it. "What are you doing down there Panther? I can see you on the camera."

He ignored his boss, still pulling in vain on the latch. Clomping boots echoed through the hallway. Looking up, he saw several men in heavy body armor round the corner, wielding handheld automatic blasters and shields. With all of them decked out in black, they looked like one formless dark mass advancing down the dim corridor, swallowing anything in its path. Panther ignored them, still tugging on the door with all his might. The door might as well have been a solid wall though.

"Get out of the way Panther!" Wolf said. "Let the security team handle Giichi!"

"No! I've got to do this myself!"

A strong hand clamped over his wrist, one of the guards pulling him away from the door with his much stronger grip. Within seconds the security team shoved him far out of the way, gathering around the door. They prepared to breach, taking positions on either side as one of them whipped out another keycard.

"Your key won't work!" Panther shouted. Why would it? He outranked them and had clearance to the entire ship.

But as soon as the guard swiped it, the door slid aside easily, the team rushing into the room within seconds. Panther's jaw dropped. That made no sense. How come they could enter but not him? Was there a glitch with the security system?

"Room's clear!" one of them called out. "No one's here, boss!"

On those words, Panther's heart skipped a beat.

"What?" Wolf said over the radio. "The security monitors showed Giichi going in there just a minute ago! He should be in there!"

"No dice, boss!"

Panther ran into the room after the security team, not wanting to believe it. But as he entered, his heart sank. Between himself and the four guards, they only had just enough room to all stand together in the cabin, since it was about the size of a walk-in closet. Giichi wouldn't even be able to fit in here without brushing against one of them. Panther turned towards the nearby wardrobe, the most obvious hiding spot. However, one of the guards had already opened it and ripped out all the clothes, showing it as empty. Panther looked up at the air vent, although that wouldn't have been a viable escape route. Even with Giichi's small frame, he'd be far too small to fit through there. The sand cat simply wasn't here.

Panther looked down, seeing the virtual racing cockpit sitting in the center of the room. He'd been sitting in that chair about fifteen minutes ago, having a fun time with Giichi playing a racing game. Was it only that long ago? It felt like a dream now. Panther gazed around the room again, hoping the sand cat might pop into existence if he looked hard enough, but it was no good. Feeling lost, he wandered out into the hallway. Where the hell would Giichi be now?

"Wait, did you check under the bed?" one of the guards said.

Panther took a sharp breath, hope rising again. He spun around, hurrying back as fast as he could.

"What's that?" A small _snick_ sound came from inside the room, like a piece of wire getting snapped in two. "Oh shit!"

A flash of light erupted through the doorway, the explosion blinding Panther and sending him flying backwards. He slammed down on his back, flipping over and rolling down the hallway, the world going topsy turvy around him. His face lay pressed against the steel floor, multiple cuts and bruises screaming out across his body. A ringing noise sounded in his ears, deafened by the blast. Cool water poured over the back of his head. His vision shaky and blurred, Panther moved into a crouch, turning around to assess the scene. Smoke and fire billowed out of what was left of Giichi's cabin, turning to steam as the fire sprinklers overhead poured water on the blaze. Red strobe lights bathed the corridor in a flashing scarlet hue, alarm klaxons reaching Panther's ears as the ringing noise faded.

"Panther…Panther!" He heard Wolf say over the radio, the voice difficult to hear. "Are you there?"

He slid his hand unit closer to his ears. "I'm here…" He coughed, feeling his lungs filling with acrid smoke. Shaky, he lurched to his feet, using the railing on the side of the corridor for support.

"Can you get back to the bridge?"

No questions about if he was okay, or if he needed medical assistance, Panther noted. Nonetheless he wiped the water off of his face, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "Yes…"

"Then get back here you idiot! Running off like that, I oughta…" Wolf cut the connection.

Grunting, Panther brought himself back into a stand, limping on one of his legs as he shuffled his way back up to where Wolf and Leon were. Black soot from the blast covered his front, cuts and tears all over his suit. Blood dripped from his head, more of it staining his suit crimson in places. And he thought the first trip to the bridge today was going to be bad. Wolf was going to have a whole new set of questions now.

As the doors to the bridge opened and Panther staggered back inside, Sable's face remained on the large screen, staring down at Wolf as he busied himself with Roland at the security station. She looked like she was sizing him up as if he were prey.

But as Panther walked back towards Wolf, she looked at him, smiling. "Ah, I see you're back now."

Panther wished she hadn't done that.

Wolf spun around, seeing his wingman standing there, covered with black soot and looking like crap. The lupine took a second look at Panther's state before resuming the chew out from before. "What were you thinking Panther?! Why'd you go down there in such a hurry?"

"I saw Giichi right before I came up here last time." Panther didn't want to be the center of attention right now, especially after the little stunt he pulled. Nonetheless, he hoped answering Wolf's questions quickly would get the spotlight off him. "He was in his room. I thought I could catch him if I hurried."

Wolf narrowed his eyes, processing the reply. It looked like he was going to take Panther's word for it, but then he asked, "But why did you say it was something you had to do yourself when you were about to barge into his room?"

Panther's ears peeled backwards. He'd forgotten he'd said that, and it sure must have sounded strange to Wolf when he heard it. While he was a good enough pilot to be one of the Big Three in Star Wolf, Wolf and Leon considered him lazy and laid back compared to them. When was the last time they saw him putting that much effort into anything besides enjoying fine luxuries or chasing after a lady?

"Enough!" Sable intervened before he had to answer Wolf. She gazed around the room. "At least he was more proactive than the lot of you! He deserves a hero's medal for what he's done."

Wolf's face twisted as he faced away from Sable, glaring at Panther with his one good eye. He looked like he wanted to point out how flawed Sable's opinion was, but held his tongue. She was the one signing their checks for this after all, and it wouldn't look good to criticize someone who'd earned her favor. Sighing, he turned back to Sable. "I don't get it." Wolf frowned, now more angry than afraid as he changed the subject. "I saw this on the monitors right before the security team went in. He should have been in there! This is bullshit!"

Black and white footage from a security camera played next to Sable's face. Giichi walked down the corridor outside his room, holding a soda and a box of food from the canteen in his hands. Reaching the door, the sand cat balanced the soda on top of his lunch box, as he reached into a pocket for his keycard. He slid the card against the reader, sweeping the door open with his foot before kicking it closed behind him after entering. It looked so casual, like he was simply grabbing some lunch in the middle of the day before settling back into his work.

"Things are never that simple when it comes to Giichi." Sable folded her arms, glaring down at the lupine before him. "He's a slippery fellow, but explaining his disappearance is simple. The footage you saw of him was prerecorded."

"Prerecorded…" Wolf's eye widened. The lupine shook his head, sighing as he did so. "Like when he helped us sneak into the Corneria City base. He used prerecorded footage to hide us while we snuck in. Punk ass kid."

"I see." The panthress put on a mocking smile as she gazed upon Wolf's misery. "Looks like he was studying your own system at the same time he was working on the Cornerians'. That's him all right. If I were you, I wouldn't trust any of your ship's computers now. In fact, he's probably monitoring everything we're talking about through your own surveillance system."

"How do you know all of this about him?" Wolf asked.

"He's been a thorn in our side for years now. I recognize his tactics, since he's been doing the same sorts of things against us."

There was that mysterious 'us' and 'we' again, like she'd been making reference to a few minutes ago. It piqued Panther's curiosity, although she didn't seem interested in saying more about herself or her organization.

"Giichi and his lot are terrorists, and the galaxy would be a much better place with all of them dead." She glared at the room, her yellow slit eyes burning as she did so.

"Giichi's a terrorist?" Panther's eyes widened.

"Indeed Panther." Her eyes narrowed, a grim expression on her face.

Panther couldn't imagine Giichi being the sort of person who'd bomb a shopping center or something. But then again, an hour ago he would have called anyone a liar if they said Giichi was going to betray Star Wolf. He realized now there were a lot of things he didn't know about his supposed friend.

"What else do you know about him?" Panther was eager to learn more.

"Wherever Giichi is, his bodyguard Augustine Strafer is not far away. He has been Giichi's bodyguard for nearly two decades and has never failed to protect him. He's also skilled at infiltrating and blending in, not being noticed until it's too late." She indicated towards the picture of the gray canine with the yellow eyes, ignored until this point. "Those two are rarely apart. I'm ninety nine percent certain Augustine is the one who planted that bomb. He must be on your ship with Giichi."

Panther took a second look at the canine's photograph. Augustine's fur was the color of stone, and his face and expression looked equally as hard, especially with those arresting yellow eyes. Was it true this guy was somewhere close by? Maybe even inside the _Retribution_? The thought chilled him to the bone. But Panther couldn't recall a single time he'd seen this guy whenever he'd spoken to Giichi. All the same, was it his imagination or did Augustine look familiar? Was it someone he passed in one of the halls?

Panther blinked, finally making the connection. "Wait, he was in the common room next to Giichi's place. I saw him sitting on the couch watching a movie. He must have been there as a lookout." _And I walked right past him less than a couple hours ago._ Panther's heart raced, his breaths coming back short and ragged. They were alone in that room. Augustine could have easily put a knife or gunshot in his back. It was like having a close call with a poisonous snake hiding under an innocent-looking rock.

"He looks familiar to me too," Leon said, speaking for the first time as he pulled out a photograph. "I think he's the same person in the middle of this picture. This was in Harry's and Franco's old room." It depicted the two named canines along with Augustine in the middle, all of them dressed in winter soldier gear. Leon turned over to Wolf. "So those two guys who tried to poison you Wolf… They're connected to both Augustine and Giichi. Add that to whoever picked up the case on the surface, and that's at least five people involved, with two of them dead."

Wolf had a sick look on his face as he stared around the room. Panther couldn't blame him, as he joined the lupine in looking face to face at the crew members standing around. How many people on the _Retribution's_ crew were in on this goddamn conspiracy? Could they even trust the people in this room? The bridge crew had frightened looks on their faces, as if one the Big Three might suddenly order them into the interrogation chambers deep in the bowels of the ship.

"Who are these people?" Wolf asked, glancing back at Sable. "Why do they want your case? How many of them are there?"

"Who they are and why they want the case is not important," Sable snapped. "The only important thing is you deliver the item to me." Her face brightened for a moment, as if she realized something. "This does give you an opportunity though. If you can capture one of them, they should know where the case is. Also, if you bring us Giichi alive and unharmed along with the case, I'll throw in a bonus on top of the one hundred million credits. How does an extra three million sound?"

Panther sucked in a breath. Three million for Giichi? It would cover the price of the Hyoodin and even give him an extra five hundred K as a bonus. He grinned. "I'll take you up on that offer." At this point, he'd be happy to hunt Giichi for free.

"Excellent, Panther," Sable smiled at him. "I wish I had someone like you working for me."

He blinked, surprised by the compliment. Wolf and Leon giving him odd glances off to the side. They sure didn't give him credit like that very often. Why was she taking such a shine to him anyway? Not that he was complaining.

"But didn't you say you wanted Giichi dead?" Wolf asked, looking confused.

"Unfortunately, Giichi's final fate is not up to me." Sable rolled her eyes. "I've been ordered to take him alive if the opportunity presents itself."

 _Ordered?_ Panther thought. She wasn't the top boss? Someone else was calling the shots for her?

"And what about Augustine?" Wolf pointed at his photograph.

"I don't care." Sable snorted, folding her arms. "Once you've got the case back, feel free to kill him, torture him, or whatever. Aside from knowing where the case is, he has no value. I'll check in on your progress later." She terminated communications without bothering to say goodbye.

Wolf nodded. "Okay…" He turned to the communications station. "Recall everyone from the surface. We can't trust any electronic means on tracking these guys, so we're gonna need manpower instead. Once everyone's back here I want this ship scoured top to bottom for Giichi and Augustine. Send those photographs to everybody's devices. No one leaves the ship until they're found." He pointed at the images on the main screens. "Also, whoever captures them alive gets a one million credit bonus from me."

The bridge crew's eyes flew open at the mention of that figure. A lot of them looked like they wanted to run off the bridge right now and help out in the hunt. Wolf smiled, Panther grinning along with him. Before it felt like an impossible task to find the case, but now Sable had given them the solution to all their problems. The _Retribution_ was big, but it wasn't _that_ big. It was only a matter of time before somebody found one of those two and got them to cough up the case's location. They'd finally get their one hundred million credit payment, and Panther would be in the clear on his Hyoodin.

"Uh, hold on!" a mallard at the radar station said. He changed part of the main screen to display four red blips approaching the _Retribution_. "We've got incoming! Four fighters! They're coming round the moon and they're moving fast!"

"Are they ours?" Wolf turned around, walking towards the duck.

"Negative! Three Arwings and a Cornerian fighter!" The image changed again to show the distant silhouettes of approaching fighters.

"What?!"

A new face appeared on the main screen. Fox McCloud sat there in his Arwing, a confident smirk on his face. "Hey Wolf! I hear you have something very important that belongs to the Cornerian military. They'd like it back, if that's not too much trouble."

Panther snarled, growling as the cocky vulpine grinned at all of them like some dumb idiot. Of all the times Star Fox had to attack, why did it have to be _now_? A part of him wondered if this might have been planned.

Wolf dismissed Fox's idiotic face from the screen. "Take 'em down!" He shouted towards the weapons station.

The image of the incoming bogeys continued to show nothing but clear space. They couldn't hear, feel, or see any of the _Retribution's_ point defenses firing. Wolf's eye narrowed, his own face curling into a snarl.

He glanced back at the weapons station. "Why aren't we shooting them?! Why are our shields lowered?"

"The ship's in a powered down state and we're running with a skeleton crew here!" Captain Jamal shouted, the rhino rapidly punching commands into a nearby terminal and trying to get ahold of the gunners. "We were trying to hide here, remember? Star Fox caught us with our pants down!"

"Then hurry and get those shields active!" Wolf stomped over to Jamal. Even though the rhino made the lupine look tiny, Jamal cowered back into his chair as his boss approached, trying to look as small as possible. Not an easy thing, given his species. Wolf jerked a finger over towards the main screen, shouting so much spittle flew from his face. "Shoot back already!"

Some of the point defenses powered up and began firing, red laser blasts streaking towards the incoming Star Fox team. It wasn't near enough to be an effective defense though, as the incoming fighters easily avoided the few shots flying their way. The Star Fox team split off into two pairs, one headed for the aft section of the ship and the other one flying towards their starboard side. One of them fired off a nova bomb, the ordnance streaking towards their engines. The bomb exploded, the entire ship rocking from the blast.

"They're firing!" the weapons station declared.

"No shit!" Wolf screamed.

"Shields are powered up and holding though. Just in time too. They were aiming for the engines. Minimal damage."

The Arwings danced around the outside of the _Retribution_ , avoiding the pitiful volume of fire as easily as a swarm of flies dodged around badly aimed swats from a newspaper. Wolf growled at the sight, pissed off by the whole thing. Panther shared the sentiment. They didn't have time to deal with this right now!

"Of all the…" Wolf's voice trailed off. Grumbling, he ran a hand through the mohawk on his head. The look on his face suggested he wanted to rip somebody's head off right now. Nonetheless, the lupine calmed himself down and cast a sideways glance at Leon and Panther. "We'll have to go out there and deal with them ourselves. Gotta do it the old-fashioned way."

Go outside? Fight Star Fox? Right now, while they were so close to getting the case back? "But what about hunting for Giichi and Augustine?" Panther asked.

"I want to go after them too, but it'll have to wait Panther." He sighed, waving off the suggestion. "We can't afford to lose the _Retribution_. Not even for one hundred million credits."

He'd already started walking for the door even as he was talking. Leon trailed after him. Panther stood rooted to the spot, wondering what he should do. Wolf was his boss, but he desperately needed to find Giichi so they could get that case. It couldn't wait right now and—

"Panther!" Wolf shouted from the bridge's exit, waiting there with Leon. "Stop standing there like an idiot! We've gotta go!"

Panther's ears peeled back, his tail thrashing behind him in anger. He cursed whatever gods were watching over him right now. Reluctantly, he trotted after his teammates, frustrated that he had to deal with this instead of going after who he really wanted to kill right now.

Wolf broke out into a sprint once the three of them were together, taking the lead. Panther had never seen his boss run so fast before, watching his gray tail thrash back and forth from behind. Even though Panther was a powerful, agile cat, he struggled to keep up. So did Leon. The various corridors and stairs flew by in a blur, all three of them almost out of breath by the time they made it to their destination.

They finally rushed through the entrance to the hangar, the large space greeting their eyes. A loud horn bellowed in their ears, coming from the left. Wolf looked in that direction, and just in time. Panther saw a cargo truck barreling straight for the lupine. He stumbled backwards, almost getting run over. The truck's tires screeched against the metal floor, the brakes squealing in protest. Wolf threw out his hands, the truck pushing him back a couple meters as it came back to a stop.

" _Watch where you're driving!"_ Wolf shouted at the driver, his voice almost loud enough to shake the windshield glass.

Once he realized he'd almost run over the head honcho of Star Wolf, the white cat behind the wheel looked like he was turning even whiter somehow. Lucky for the driver, they didn't have time to deal with him right now. The team kept running for their fighters, Panther glancing back to see the small truck driving away, carrying a cargo container in its rear bed.

The jungle cat shook his head. He needed to focus on the upcoming dogfight right now. His future hinged upon it. If Giichi and Augustine got away, that'd be it as far as finding the case and getting paid. And that would put Panther in a very precarious position indeed, once Wolf found out he'd bought that Hyoodin with Star Wolf's money.

As they rushed through the room, Panther noted the hangar was mostly empty of ships, since the bulk of the _Retribution's_ forces were deployed planetside. Cargo containers, support vehicles, and other equipment lay scattered around, but most of the floor space sat empty. Only seeing a handful of fighters here unsettled Panther, knowing Star Fox was attacking them. Even so, Wolf's Wolfen, Panther's Black Rose, and Leon's Rainbow Delta waited in the central part of the floor, technicians running around them and prepping them for takeoff. The three of them combined with the _Retribution_ giving support ought to be enough to fight off Star Fox. But instead of going for his Wolfen, Wolf ran for the part of the hangar he'd closed off with the temporary metal partitions.

"Clear all that away!" Wolf hollered out as he approached.

Panther blinked, slowing down. That was where Wolf had his secret project going for months, not showing it to anybody, not even from Leon and Panther himself. What was in there and why was Wolf pulling it out now? The technicians prepping the Wolfen rushed over, grunting as they moved aside the temporary metal walls.

As they revealed what was inside, Panther realized it was a new fighter painted in Star Wolf's colors of red, white, and black. However, this was a ship design he'd never seen before. From the front, it resembled a six-pointed star, between the two wings and two sets of twin tails, one set sprouting out from above and the other coming out of the bottom. The nose was split into two halves to make room for twin laser cannons sitting between the prongs, right in front of the cockpit. That'd make the lasers extremely easy to aim and something of a death beam to anyone who got caught in them. Nova bomb launchers were embedded into the wings as well. Between the compact shape, the extra wings for more turning power, and the cone-mounted blaster cannons, it looked like one mean dog fighting machine.

"This is the special project you had going on back here?" Leon asked.

"That's right." Wolf smiled, a toothy grin on his face. "This is the Foxhound. I based it on the old Wolfen II design from the Andross days. I thought it was time to try something new with how much we've lost to Star Fox. It's not battle tested yet, but now seems like a good time for a test drive. We don't have time to be fighting Star Fox, so we need to end this as quickly as possible. I think the Foxhound is up for this job, wouldn't you say?"

Leon and Panther both nodded their approval.

"All right, let's get out there boys!" Wolf pumped his fist. "We've got a hundred and three million to make!"

The three of them split off to run for their fighters, Panther jumping inside the Black Rose. As the cockpit canopy settled closed and he taxied into position for takeoff, Panther eyed the open docking port, watching as the Arwings darted in and out of sight while the point defenses tracked them. Today, he intended to fight at one hundred percent as opposed to his usual, more laid back style. No messing around, no flirting, just straight up killing. He had another, more important prey to bag once this was overwith…

* * *

In a small cube-shaped room in another part of the ship, Giichi sat on a crate and looked at a tablet computer, the device providing the only illumination in the small space. He rewatched the exchange between Sable and Star Wolf on the bridge from a few minutes ago. The fur on the back of his neck stood up when she offered them the three million credit reward for his capture. Sure, he'd been hunted like this in the past by others under Sable's command, but she'd never offered a reward _this_ big before. Not to mention he'd never been trapped on the same ship as the people trying to catch him either. Giichi looked around the small space, the walls feeling like they were closing in. He felt like Star Wolf grunts would open up the door to this room any second.

"How are you feeling Giichi?" The voice was almost monotone and robotic-like. A hand, hard as granite but reassuring all the same, rested on his shoulder.

Upon the feel of that, some of the fear melted away. Giichi turned to look at Augustine sitting on a crate next to him. If anything about what the canine heard from the video fazed him, the he didn't show it. Then again, that was his default mode of operation anyway. It's why Augustine had been his bodyguard all these years, after all. Almost anything thrown at him wouldn't shake him.

He wore a dark bodysuit colored charcoal grey, the chest area a slightly lighter shade. Small stripes in a faded orange accented the lighter patch, running away along the sides of his chest. A black harness covered the outside of the suit, numerous pouches and tactical gear attached to it. On his right arm, a peculiar gauntlet covered most of it, extending past his elbow and up most of his shoulder. While the material of the gauntlet looked like metal, it bent and stretched over the elbow as though it were a softer material instead like rubber.

"Not going to lie Nail, I'm scared." Giichi grimaced, eyes to the floor. Nail was Augustine's nickname. "Even with you here, no offense. Feels like a noose is closing around my neck."

"It's okay." Nail pat him on the shoulder, the edges of his mouth turning up in an almost invisible smile. Lowering his hand, Nail drew a semi-automatic handgun out of a holster strapped to his hip, screwing a black tube on the end. He slipped a magazine into the handle, pulling the nickel slide back to chamber the first shot. The pistol was of an old-fashioned variety, the kind that fired bullets instead of lasers. "I'm here, and I've never failed you."

Giichi nodded. Nail spoke the truth about that.

"You should have never let Panther get that close to you though." He continued, still checking his gun. While this type of firearm was an older style of weapon, Giichi remembered Nail saying it would work better for sneaking off the _Retribution_ than any kind of blaster. He called the black tube a suppressor, and talked about how it'd lower the firing noise to where the only sound was the slide moving back after each shot. "It's dangerous to be fraternizing with the enemy."

"Maybe so but I feel bad about what we've done to him." The sand cat's ears folded back. "He bought that car, thinking he'd get paid, and now it looks like he's not going to get out of this unscathed. You have any idea how much it hurt to pretend to be excited when he showed me his new Hyoodin?"

"Was it pretending? I know you and your cars." Nail's golden eyes felt like they stared straight through Giichi, as they usually did. "Besides, it's Panther's fault he's in his mess, not yours. He brought this on himself."

Those words didn't offer Giichi much comfort. He didn't like those security guards dying either. Sure, it was Nail who set the bomb, although Giichi still felt like he had blood on his hands from agreeing to that plan. Also, they wouldn't be the last deaths at Nail's hands today. He never did like it when Nail killed to protect him, as inevitable as it was.

"Sorry, but we're at war Giichi," Nail said, sensing his mood. "Sometimes killing is the only solution if you want to survive."

Suddenly the 'room' came to a jolting halt. A crane whirred, picking them up off the back of a flatbed and placing them on the metal floor. There was a brief set of footsteps, and then the sound of a truck driving away.

"Okay, we're here," Nail whispered, waving his hand for Giichi to get down. The sand cat put away the tablet computer, hiding behind some of the smaller boxes and away from the room's door. "Wait till I clear the area."

He walked towards the door, gently pushing down the latch and pushing it open with the barrel of his suppressed pistol. Giichi risked a peek, catching a glimpse of the hangar outside. The three Star Wolf fighters had just taken off to fight Star Fox, blasting off into space. While the guards watched the fighters leave, Nail slipped out through the door, shutting it behind him. Now Giichi found himself alone in the darkness of the freight container. It was all in Nail's hands now to get them out of here. But like he said before, he'd never failed to protect Giichi. Hopefully it'd be the same today.

* * *

 _A/N: Damn, it feels good to be back! Wow…almost a whole year without an update on this story. Didn't think it'd take this long to get back round to it. But I think the time off was good for me. I've got a huge document with notes and outlines on where I want this story to go next, so that should be a big help in keeping writer's block at bay in the future._

 _Also, writing Fox and Krystal in_ 10,462 Lives _was fun, but I'd say writing Star Wolf is my true calling. I love writing stories about these guys. Anti-hero and villain characters have always been a lot more interesting to me compared to unambiguously good heroes, hence why I gravitate towards Wolf as opposed to Fox. It probably comes from me playing lots of GTA games and watching heist or crime films where the protagonists are criminals. This was way easier to write compared to the later chapters of_ 10,462 Lives _, that's for sure._

 _Next up will be an update to_ Love is Blind _. I haven't updated that since April, so I think it's owed some attention now as well. Hope to see you over there!_


End file.
